


A Book of Most Curious Letters

by lumailia



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Epistolary, F/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, background Emmeryn/Phila - Freeform, background Frederick/Cordelia - Freeform, but Canon Divergent, canonverse, just warning you, other background ships tbd but this is mostly about chrom and robin, tags to be updated as story continues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumailia/pseuds/lumailia
Summary: When Robin, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia, receives a threat of assassination in the mail from the Prince of Ylisse himself, she does the unthinkable and writes him back. What begins as a by-mail spitting match, though, soon blooms into a deep, affectionate friendship, and as Robin finds herself falling for the enemy prince, she realizes this dangerous affair can only lead to one impossible choice: between her duty, and her heart.The enemies-to-lovers, slowburn epistolary fic featuring overwrought insults, masquerade balls, and excruciating mutual pining that absolutely no one asked for.
Relationships: Chrom/My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 183
Kudos: 464





	1. CHAPTER ONE: The Pen is Mightier

**CHAPTER ONE: The Pen is Mightier**

+

_To the Concern of her Eminent Shadow, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia:_

_Do not mistake this parcel’s innocuous wrapping for an olive branch—I write to you today on the blatant premise of threat._

_You are a stain. Setting your brigands loose on our borders, plundering our villages, slaughtering our men with your eldtrich magic—your violent charade has carried on far too long. The people of Ylisse say our enemy is Plegia, but I know this Plegia they fear is no country, no king, but a woman with sword and tome, hiding her face in the darkness._

_This Plegia is a coward._

_Grandmaster, I do not know your name, but I am certain the history books will make careful record of it once I’ve slain you where you stand._

_If you are looking for a divination, some message from your blasphemous god, this is it. Your days are numbered. The next my Shepherds meet your brigands, I shall charge through their ranks and kill you myself._

_I imagine you did not expect such words from me. Your people consider our age of Ylisseans demure, given the breadth of our Exalt Emmeryn’s grace. Should you carry the selfsame impression, hear me this: my sister may be merciful, but I am not._

_May you revel in the feeling of your head upon your shoulders, Grandmaster. It will not be there much longer._

_In Naga’s Name and Light,_

_Prince Chrom of Ylisse_

Robin almost throws the letter away, as she’s done with the numerous other threats on her life that have shown up in her morning post--anonymous, messily penned things, full of hot air and fatalistic drivel about the wrath of the Fell God, Grima. But not this one. No, the Ylissean Prince is bold enough stamp his name and seal right on his foolish declaration.

She reads it again, mouthing the words wrought in his perfect cursive, but she can hardly finish without erupting into laughter. It takes a special kind of idiot to be this audacious—and Robin's invaded Regna Ferox in the winter.

“Something’s got you giggling.”

She looks up. Her pale shadow of a retainer has appeared in the doorway, his perpetual smile bright as the moon. 

“Good morning, Henry,” Robin says. “You wouldn’t believe it—it seems I have a gentleman caller.”

“Oh, I’d believe that. You’re adorable, Lady Robin,” says Henry, stepping into the study. “Not as adorable as the Risen, though.”

“You flatter me. Come, look at this.”

He joins her on her reading couch and leans over her shoulder to glimpse the letter. “Milady, I know I don’t have the best social skills, but I don’t think that’s a ‘gentleman caller.’”

Robin nudges the letter into Henry’s hands. There’s something green and rotten caked beneath his nails, but since her breakfast is coming, she’s not going to ask what. “Here. Look at the sender.”

“Prince Chrom of Ylisse!” Henry shouts, and Robin gently shushes him. “Do you think he’s serious?”

“I think he’s very serious. That’s what’s so funny about it all.”

“Well, what’s next? Planning the offensive? Gutting him? That’d be fun.”

Robin takes back the letter and reclines on the couch, studying the obnoxious pen flourishes that melt off the Prince’s signed name. “I don’t know,” she says. “Is it worth it, expending all my tactical energy on a man I can’t remember ever fighting?”

“You lost your memories when you were young, right?”

“If I got into a schoolyard fight with the Prince of Ylisse in my childhood, Grima will it that someone on this court would have the pity to tell me. Pitiless people they are,” Robin quips. She hooks a finger beneath her lip, contemplating. “I may have an idea, though.”

“Does it involve blood?”

Robin winks at him. “Not yet.”

“Awh.”

She tugs on one of the bangles at his wrist. “Check on my breakfast for me? Zaya should have been here twenty minutes ago.”

“Can you tell me your idea first?”

“Later,” she says, waving him off. “I’m starving.”

Henry nods and kisses her gloved hand—something that started as a protocol, when he first came under her father’s employment, but has since become the sweeter of Henry's habits—then departs for the hall.

Letter in hand, Robin heads for her desk by the window. On better days, the lacquered teakwood picks up an even matte of sunlight, but with a new maritime campaign to plan, the wood is hidden under maps and inventories and a precarious collection of thumbtacks, their points up and gleaming like tiny blades.

Robin eases the letter down and sets a blank piece of parchment beside it. Her gaze flickers to her quill, a large Pegasus feather, sitting patient before a jar of ink.

“If it is a war you’d like, Your Highness,” she mutters, lifting the quill, “Then a war you shall get.”

+

_To the Concern of His Royal Highness, Prince Chrom of Ylisse:_

_I have prepared quite a few words for you on this bizarre occasion of our correspondence, but I feel for an introductory remark, a succinct few shall suffice:_

_Kiss. My. Ass._

_How uncouth of me! I know. Believe me, I can almost imagine the line of sweat trickling down your brow at the sight of a_ lady, _Grima forbid, slinging such foul words across the page. My prayers for the poor soul who must dab your desolate head with their handkerchief._

_No matter, I have reviewed your propositions to assassinate me, and I must convey with great regret, well-plotted as they were, that they have been denied. Should you wish to submit another request for my head on a pike, I believe the Plegian Royal Council will reopen their submissions in the autumn._

_As I read your letter once more, I must say I find your perceptions of me rather humorous. You capture my visage in striking detail, yet you’ve somehow deluded yourself that I am the only Plegian sword upon the battlefield, the sole perpetrator of the bloodshed suffered by your “Shepherds,” as you call them. Such ardent fascination—dare I say obsession, Your Highness, could prove quite the chink in your armor._

_What’s stranger is I cannot recall ever fighting you at all. You, Prince Chrom, must be rather unmemorable._

_Still, do not take my tone for a jest. If you truly plan to challenge me, I am unopposed to crossing blades. Yes! Blades! I will do my most earnest to make this a fair fight. But do not expect a victory, Your Highness. One does not stoke a hornet’s nest and evade the sting._

_In Grima’s Glorious Dark,_

_Mage Grandmaster of Plegia_

_P.S. My name is Robin. You’d do well to remember it when you’re begging for your life._

“This brazen woman,” Chrom mutters, snatching the letter back from Frederick’s hands. “The nerve of her!”

Fredrick sets his teacup gently on its saucer. “I did tell you it was unwise to send the letter.”

“As if I expected a response,” says Chrom, bristling. “Who replies to a threat of assassination? She should be cowering, stealing her bandits away from the borders to protect herself. Not bickering with me like some petulant child.”

This earns him the pop of an eyebrow from Frederick. “You truly think a piece of parchment could still a hundred swords?”

“More has been achieved with less,” Chrom scoffs. “Besides, the Mage Grandmaster—this _Robin_ —is the backbone of the Plegian army. Compromising her should throw their forces into complete disarray.”

Frederick lifts the tea kettle and refills his liege’s cup. “Yet it appears she remains uncompromised.”

“I am well aware of that,” Chrom says, shaking the letter. “What should I do, now? Go on the defense? Head back to the border to kill her and be done with it? All I want is to keep my family and my people safe.”

“I know this.”

Chrom sets down the letter and closes his hands around his teacup. A gesture of smallness. Uncertainty. It’s unbecoming of him.

“I’m no tactician, Frederick. I can’t think about these things without the pressure of battle to spur me on.”

“Do you regret sending the letter?” Frederick asks, arching a brow.

“No,” Chrom rushes. His reflection stares back at him from the teacup, judging. “Perhaps.”

“I see,” says Frederick. “Lady Phila is dispatching an arm of her Knights to a wellspring near the border—per Cordelia’s scouting, another ring of bandits has been circling, looking for a way into the Temple of Naga. She requests your presence at half after noon to review the formation.”

“I doubt Lady Phila needs my counsel.”

Frederick stiffens. “The request came from Cordelia, Your Highness.”

“Right. Well, I’ll see to it if I can,” Chrom says. He slides his teacup, unfinished, and saucer to the center of the table. “In the meantime, I have another matter of strategy to attend to.”

“If I may speak freely—”

“You always may.”

Frederick takes a deep breath. “Thank you, Your Highness. What I was saying was that I don’t think you should respond to the Grandmaster’s letter. She’s…certifiably unhinged. Not to mention her unconscionable flair for cliche.”

“I’ll make note of it,” says Chrom. “Say, if I remember correctly, weren't you needed at the stables this morning?”

“You may simply dismiss me, milord.”

“You know you’re too good a friend for that,” Chrom remarks, the quirk of a smile on his lip. “Go on, then. Make sure Stahl hasn’t burned the place down and whatnot.”

Frederick exits with a bow. As the door clicks shut, Chrom picks up the letter once more. He runs a bitten nail beneath her name, so boxy and simple, penned in her post-scriptum.

“Robin. Like the bird,” he whispers to himself. _It doesn’t suit you—Robin is far too lovely a name for some maleficent hag._

Well, he doesn’t know she’s a hag. Stories of her speak of youth, of a prodigy mage slinging lightning from the shadows. But he’s only seen her on the battlefield once. Through the fray, he caught spare fragments of her ornate coat, her jagged blade, her plumes of white hair matted with gore and grit. Never have they fought head to head.

That will change. Each has challenged the other’s life, and a duel is worth the price of their honor. Chrom has never been the sort to bask in violence, yet the thought of facing this quiet nemesis he’s made, of her blood sliding red down Falchion's steel, of her eyes—whatever color they may be—pierced wide with terror, sets a terrible thunder in his heart. His arms ache suddenly for his sword.

But without Frederick around to chide him, he picks up a quill instead.

+

The royal mail convoy is a junior Pegasus Knight, another one of Phila’s mentees. She can’t be more than fourteen, Chrom thinks, looking at her full cheeks and wide, bright eyes, her lashes caked with an amateurish amount of black pomade. As Chrom nears her, she ducks a foot behind her ankle in a tiny curtsy.

“Captain!” she exclaims. “Lady Cordelia was looking for you.”

“I’ve heard,” he says. He holds out a sealed envelope, and when she plucks it from his hand, her nose wrinkles. “I do hate to send you so far again, Anise.”

“It’s alright. I suppose I have to prove myself somehow.”

He frowns. “You’ll at least travel to the border with the rest of the Knights?”

“I don’t know,” Anise says, shrugging. “Lady Phila might have me stay behind. Like last time.”

“Well, the journey from here to the Plegian capital is not an easy one. I’d say you’re more than ready for a tougher mission,” he says, and an unsteady smile warms Anise’s face. “In fact, in our strategy meeting today, I’ll put forth my personal recommendation on your behalf.”

Her eyes sparkle. “Really?”

“Consider it my thanks.”

“You’re the best, Captain Chrom!”

Clutching the letter in both hands, Anise departs, a little rumble of dust in her wake as she heads towards the stables. Chrom can’t fight a chuckle. She reminds him of his sister, Lissa—all that bright, boundless energy coiled up in a tiny frame.

Chrom takes for his own path, towards the verdant flank of hillside that slopes down towards the Shepherds’ barracks. But he’s in no hurry. Springtime sun begets a detour through the garden, where the hydrangeas are blooming in snowy puffs along the walkways, bounding well-trimmed thickets of lily and gardenia. Between long rows of hedges, white trellised fences boast curlicues of jasmine vine. Dandelions and violets—mere weeds to some—poke out of every crevice in the walkway tiles. They are fortunate, here in Ylisse, to have such variety of blooms to celebrate the end of winter.

Chrom’s thoughts drift westward, and his face towards a spotless blue sky. Spring in Plegia must be so dismal, with only lengthening days to shine on an unchanging desert.

“You’re going to be late, strolling along at that pace.”

Chrom swivels. Exalt Emmeryn seems to be growing out of the lily stalks she stands behind—the creamy flowers match her gown to the very tint.

“Emm,” he says. “I didn’t notice you.”

She picks a lily and twirls it before her face, barely hiding a coy smile. “You never notice anything when your mind is elsewhere.” 

“Forgive me, then.” He points a thumb behind his shoulder. “I’m on my way to a strategy meeting.”

“With the Pegasus Knights?”

“You’ve been talking to Lady Phila.”

“As I am often.” She walks around beside him, and as he starts his pace again, he offers a bent arm, which she takes. “Those girls do quite like you.”

“Hah! If only their steeds did.”

“My dear brother, I’m so sorry your childhood dream of becoming a Pegasus Knight couldn’t come to pass,” she says, a shimmer like laughter in her voice. She twirls her flower at its pedicel, and a shadow passes over her face. “Blame father for praying so hard for a boy.”

Chrom tenses, a chill building in his spine. Neither has ever been the sort to make light of anything regarding their father. He was a tyrant; he ripped open the healing gash between Ylisse and Plegia, then died without leaving any sutures. Emm rose to the rank of Exalt with nothing from him but the greening, hand-shaped bruises on her wrists.

She notices Chrom’s discomfort and gives his sleeved arm a gentle squeeze. “What I mean to say is, if you want to start looking for love, their ranks might be a fruitful start.”

"Gods, I don't think I'm ready for that."

“If you want my honesty,” she starts, “When you _are_ ready, I think you should try for someone you’ll need to chase a bit—rather than the first person to chase after you.”

“Or: I could enter a clandestine romance with a knight sworn to protect me and never tell a soul but my precious little siblings.”

Emmeryn rolls her eyes—she’s never very proper with her siblings, and Chrom thanks the gods for it. “I hate to break your heart, brother, but Frederick’s had his eyes on Lady Cordelia for months, now.”

Chrom offers his sister a soft smile. “She’d be a wonderful Queen, Emmeryn.”

“You fancy Lady Cordelia? Since when? She’ll faint dead away if she hears you say that.”

And his smile falls. “I mean Lady Phila. For you,” he says. “Gods know any wife of mine would only become queen if…no. Perish the thought.”

“You’re maturing, Chrom. Quite a great deal,” Emmeryn replies. “That’s the only reason I’ll broach such topics with you.”

“Like death?”

“And love.” 

Chrom looks out to the edge of the garden. “We really are going to be late.”

“Oh, worry not,” Emmeryn says, patting his arm. “My dearest Phila is admirable in her patience.”

+

_Two Weeks Later_

For as much as the Plegian League seems to revere her, Robin has never been fond of them. They are men, all but one—High Priestess Daiada, a cold, thin-lipped sorceress from the Tundralands with a penchant for swift executions—and Robin is a miniature against them, with only her padded coat and her words to hide her smallness.

There is little she wants from her father, but she often wonders if Grima couldn’t have spared her a few inches of Duke Validar’s height.

A gavel sounds throughout the Great Hall, pounding through the air down the curved vaults in the ceiling, and Robin rights herself in her chair. She sits to the left of her father, and him to the left of her Lord Uncle, the King. Gangrel’s stance betrays his title—he's all but melted into his council throne, his legs spread wide across the seat, one gauntleted arm draped along a velvet armrest the while the other serves to rest his head.

“Shall we begin with the reading of appeals?” Gangrel cries. A nasal quality colors his voice, one that makes him sound almost sniveling—but Robin hears it for what it is. All her life, she has been trained to peel apart words and tones, to root out the traitors among her ranks by virtue of wavering pitch and twitching fingers. Gangrel’s adenoidal lilt, she fears, is only prelude to a coming madness.

Robin stands and, as custom, regards her uncle with a bow at the shoulders. Unlike the rest of the Council, he bears no respect for her in his gaze. A sliver of a grin twitches at the corner of his mouth, and dread wrings her stomach—she has already lost.

She takes a shivering breath and turns her gaze out to the Council. _Hope_ she grinds silently, the word sharp and metallic behind her teeth. Before any concession, she must try hope.

“Grandmaster? Your appeal?” the King pushes.

Robin clears her throat. “Let it be known, firstly, that this appeal is not mine alone, but the distillation of requests across the ranks of our forces, from our lowest of infantrymen to Grand General Mustafa himself,” Robin says. Her alto carries, but not so well as she’d like. “Our most dire need is provisions. We cannot be expected to fight if we are ill, or hungry, or sleeping beneath a cold night sky instead of a roof. I understand it has long been practice to hire independent parties to control our borders, but my Generals and I believe the funds channeled currently to mercenary hire might be better disposed to our existing militia. Perhaps such a change might allow us to draft more honest soldiers into our forces, instead of relying on blades whose loyalties are so easily swayed by the coin.”

She pauses, scanning, but the League’s faces are mostly unmoved. Only Mustafa offers her a nod to carry on.

“My request, given these conditions,” she continues, “is a fifty-percent slash of mercenary hire, with those funds, already expressed in the royal military budget, rerouted to new barracks halls and higher wages for _all_ of our soldiers.”

“And what of the armory?” Gangrel trills. “Surely for such a sum, we’d invest more in our forges, our smithies—”

“I’ve reviewed the books, Your Highness. Our resources there are hardly in deficit. In fact, it would seem we’ve made quite the industry of bloodshed.”

“As the Fell God wills it,” says Gangrel. “These are funny words from you, Grandmaster. Your…prowess on the battlefield has become something of a fable in this land.”

“I have spoken only with pride,” she says, though a memory unfurling in the corner of her mind, a small, scorched hand reaching out through a crown of _Arcfire_ flames, weakens her conviction.

“Then you’ll be delighted read our newest articles of war against Ylisse.”

“Our what?” she mutters. Her blood simmers—her uncle is a fool. Their skirmishes on the border are just that. Skirmishes. Hardly grounds for war. Ferox, for all its might and endurance, and the cold, aloof shores of Valm are the real threats, and he knows it. This is incendiary.

This is a test.

Robin glances to her father, looking for disapproval, but finds a glib mask of pride instead.

She cannot let this rattle her. She rolls her wrists, calming herself, imagining the anger in her body pushed out through her fingers like the first hot sparks of magic. “This is surprising,” she says, evenly. Eyes closed. “To think I thought you wrote your declarations in blood, not ink.”

For a breath, she thinks she’s disarmed him. Then Gangrel’s laugh, cruel and tinny, sounds at her side. “This was all your father, Grandmaster. I haven’t lifted a finger,” he says. “Though I’ll gladly lift my sword.”

+

Robin follows the King and her father to the throne room with the feeling of rocks in her stomach. She’s lost. Her men won’t be fed, and they’re going to war. Her vow to kill the Ylissean prince was little more than a game, but this is real. _War._ War, with Robin at the ravenous heart of it. 

She will make so many widows. So many ghosts.

She wanted to be a professor. When she was a little girl, reading books to recover her knowledge of the world she’d lost, she decided that nothing would make her happier than to teach everyone in Plegia all the wonderful things she’d learned. Her father would not let her. Her _B_ _rand_ would not let her. Every day, she curses those six vicious eyes that bruise her the sun-coppered skin of her hand, that she can only dream to forget lie open and watching beneath her glove.

Gangrel stops halfway to his throne, the medals at his neck clanging as he spins to face her. Contempt sheens his eyes. “What. Was. That?”

“I beg your pardon?” Robin asks.

“You, wagging your tongue during the League council!” he exclaims. “Were you trying to make a fool of your King?”

“I gave only my honest judgment, Your Excellency.”

“Judgment? Your _insolence_ borders on treason,” he snaps. He steps towards her, his rancid breath spraying over her face. “Don’t forget you only have your rank because of that mark on your hand. Were you anyone else’s daughter, you’d be slopping with the infantry.”

“Says our King from the slums.” 

Validar holds up a black-tipped finger. “Now, Robin—”

“Silence, brother,” Gangrel snarls. “This is between me and the witch.”

Robin crosses her arms, hoping the folds of her cloak will hide her heaving chest. “I ask again—pardon?”

Gangrel picks at his teeth. “You heard me,” he says. He flicks something off his nail, and it narrowly misses her cheek. Disgust cinches her face. “You tried to make a fool of me, thinking you’re so smart, so tact. Your flowery words mean nothing to me. _You_ mean nothing to me. All that matters here is the very thing you hide.”

“My brand.”

He grins at her, fresh blood shining along his gumline. “Your _birthright._ ” He leans even closer, twisting his neck, but Robin is too paralyzed to move away. Madness is a hungry thing, and it has devoured him. “You will be their annihilation, Child of Grima—whether you want to or not.”

“And what hit to your pride is grounds for the Ylisseans’ annihilation?”

Gangrel tires of words—his palm is a searing iron as it strikes Robin’s cheek. Tears prick her eyes. She stumbles backward, a hand on her face, shame and rage twisting a vicious coil through her chest. And Gangrel laughs. Laughs until blood is dribbling down his chin. Until his head is cocked up to the windows in the ceiling, as if he wants Grima himself to hear him cackle.

Robin looks to her father, hoping for a shred of sympathy—at least a little diplomacy, if such feelings are beyond his grasp—but he is already lost to the castle’s shadows.

+

Robin’s room offers little reprieve. The late afternoon sunlight, waned to a placid cinnamon glow, feels like a taunt. Henry sits in the corner, his smile dimmed (never gone), and she sends him away at once, unable to bear even the slightest brush of her retainer’s lips against her knuckles.

She stalks over to her bed, hands raveled in her hair, nails scraping her scalp. Pain to hide the pain. _Remember hope,_ she screams at herself, but hope is little against humiliation.

An envelope sits on her nightstand, addressed in a familiar, viny hand. She should think before tearing it open, use a letter opener or a dagger, but anger guides her fingers beneath the flap; she nearly rips the letter as she frees it.

_To the Concern of Her Eminent Shadow, Mage Grandmaster Robin of Plegia:_

_Firstly, I am appalled that the name of such a kind and docile creature could be shared with a woman of your malevolence. Your mother must have many regrets._

_Secondly, as my retainer previewed your last letter to me, he was mercifully sharp enough to remark upon your fondness for clichés. To think I almost thought you were clever! This is the only time you shall trick me, I assure you._

_My armies are watching our borders carefully. If you are foolish enough to strike—know I’ll be there to put an end to it._

_In Naga’s Name and Light,_

_Prince Chrom of Ylisse_

Her lip quivers. She’s losing her grip and her power and they’re going to gods-damned war and he has the nerve to talk about _clichés._

Across the room, her desk beckons, and she yields. She writes. Swiftly, furiously, she writes. Then she crumples her letter, and tries again, and again, until all she has left for the Prince of Ylisse is a curt paragraph and the thin, brittle hope that he might see the anger in her ink strokes.


	2. CHAPTER TWO: It's a Dictionary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day later than planned! I had a pretty rough Friday unfortunately. Anyway, here's chapter two!

**CHAPTER TWO: It’s a Dictionary**

+

_To the Concern of His Royal Highness, Prince Chrom of Ylisse:_

_You insolent farce of a prince—how dare you speak ill of my mother! As yours, she is dead. Your attempts to cheapen and belittle me are fruitless, and I hope that as you’re reading this, your cheeks are ruddy with shame._

_In Grima’s Glorious Dark,_

_Robin, Mage Grandmaster_

_P.S. How do I know it is not this retainer you speak of writing your letters? It would hardly surprise me if the Prince of Ylisse were an illiterate brat._

Chrom unfurls Robin’s latest letter in the back of a supply wagon. Wedged between Vaike—who is sleeping so deeply, Chrom’s quiet seething does not wake him—and a tall crate full of battleaxes, he’s far from comfortable, but safe from Frederick’s prying eyes. Chrom leans in to read the slim letter a second time, his jaw slackened as though he's reading the words in the new. How could a woman of noble rank be so crass? And spiteful! So much venom in her words, he fears even touching the ink might poison him.

Yet he must respond. Robin doesn’t get to have the last word—not in their letters, and certainly not on the battlefield.

Careful not to wrinkle it, Chrom folds the letter three times and tucks it into his shirt before he twists around, peeking over the rations crates where he’d rested his back. The wagon’s front half is quiet: Frederick has taken over driving the wagon, while Miriel studies a tome beside a snoring Sully. Buttery lantern-light spreads over the wagon’s rawhide covering, flickering with each bump and dip that meets the wheels. 

“Miriel,” he whispers.

She jerks her head. A line of lantern flame blazes across her glasses. “Yes, Captain?”

“Do you have a book of letters on you?”

He thinks her eyes narrow, but there’s still a good bit of glare. “Why the sudden interest in academics?” she asks.

“I’m writing something.”

“Should we be worried?” 

“Not you.”

Miriel huffs. With her gaze still fixed on Chrom, she grabs her satchel and digs around for a book, feeling them by the spines. Unnerved as he is, he has to admire her commitment to suspicion. Or maybe it's curiosity. He can never quite tell with Miriel. 

She hands him the book— _Greater Archanean Letters and Phrases: Fifteenth Edition_. “Anything else, Captain?”

“Parchment? And something to write with?”

“What of those preparedness speeches you give us?”

He sighs. “Miriel. Please.”

“I don’t have a proper quill, but there are a few sticks of graphite in here.”

“That’s fine.”

She fishes three leaves of parchment (slightly rumpled, which Robin will likely poke fun at) and two sticks of graphite from her satchel. Chrom lays them atop the book. “Thank you, Miriel.”

He crouches back down and sets the book atop his knees, flipping it to the backside for an even baring surface. Then, he smooths a leaf of parchment down and picks up a writing stick. _To the Concern of Her Eminent Shadow, Mage Grandmaster Robin…_

At his side, Vaike shifts. Yawns. The wagon shudders, and his head knocks briefly against Chrom's. “Whatcha doing, Cap’n?”

Chrom stills his hand. “Go back to sleep, Vaike.”

“Only the Vaike decides when he sleeps,” he mutters, but the second his head falls on Chrom's shoulder, he’s out again.

Stifling a laugh, Chrom turns back to his page. _Oh Robin—how do I return your favor?_

+

Dawn rises from deep blue into silver—thick clouds have wandered in overnight, heavy with the promise of rain. Chrom balances atop the wagon’s back lip, one hand coiled in a rigging tether, watching a diaphanous mist creep over the road behind them. There's a kind of magic here, all these miles from the bustle of Ylisstol. The storm winds are cool against his cheeks. Petrichor sharpens the smells of the earth: the soil, the grasses, the great pines bleeding their sap. Overhead, thunder rumbles in trembling bass. He feels like lightning and adventure; he feels like he could conquer the world.

But he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t even try. _We will not be conquerors,_ he and Emm whispered as children, the candles for their father’s vigil spilling wax over their hands. _We will be healers, and shepherds, and teachers. Never warlords. Never conquerors._

The wagon’s covering flutters behind him, tearing him from the memory. Frederick emerges, his hair windswept and tangled, a blue shade to the skin beneath his eyes.

“Is Vaike driving?” Chrom asks.

“No, milord. I’ve just given the helm to Sully.” Frederick stakes a place beside him, grabbing the opposite tether to keep himself aboard.

“Oh, thank Naga,” Chrom mutters.

“We should be rolling into town soon,” Frederick supplies. “You said we plan to meet the dispatch at a tavern?”

“Outside of one, yes. I think it’s called, ‘The Bard’s Beard.’”

Frederick huffs. “Cheeky alliteration.”

“My friend, I’m beginning to think you were an author in another life.”

“I only paid attention to my tutors,” says Frederick. “Unlike the man who asked Miriel for a dictionary last night.”

A blush crawls up Chrom's neck. “That was just for a joke. I was looking up insults. For Vaike. But then he fell asleep on me.”

“Right,” Frederick says, eyebrow raised. “For Vaike.”

+

Their caravan reaches town as the first drops of rain dare to fall. Chrom has since joined Sully at the front of their wagon, but she refused to surrender the reins. A small cluster of Pegasus knights—Phila, Sumia, and bright-faced Anise—waits on the main street to stroll them in, lances strapped like half-clipped wings to their backs.

“Captain! You made it!” Sumia exclaims.

“All in one piece!” he responds. 

Sumia’s smile brightens. She’s a strange sight in the rain: her hair, always meticulously curled, sticks in long strands to her cheeks, droplets clinging to her pearl-pink armor as though she's just come from the sea, instead of the sky.

“Forward, everyone,” Phila commands. She throws Sumia a sidelong glance, but Chrom can’t imagine why. “Our allies are waiting.”

As they head into the village—if the menagerie of squat houses and animal pens they pass can be called such—Sumia pulls her Pegasus up beside them, its broad wings dusting the ground. With her back ramrod straight and hands wrapped thrice in the reins, Chrom can tell she’s struggling to be graceful.

“You’re handling her a lot better, girlie,” Sully calls to Sumia. “It’s good to see you out here with us.”

“Oh!” Sumia tugs on her reins, cheeks coloring. “They do better when you talk to them. Well, this girl here does, anyway.”

“And what does one say to a Pegasus?” Chrom asks.

“Secrets,” Sully interjects. “Things we don’t tell stinky boys.”

Chrom puts his head in his hands. “By the gods, you sound just like Lissa—”

“Hey Sumia, did you know that when Chrom was little, he wanted to be a Pegasus Knight?”

“Look! Feroxi dispatch, straight ahead,” Chrom says, his cheeks full of pink.

He points to his diversion: Feroxi soldiers, dressed in their customary silks and furs, form a resolute line outside the tavern. Behind them, a flatbed oxcart carries a familiar, fair-haired woman. She waves a scar-weathered hand through the rain.

“Ho, Shepherds!” she calls as Chrom’s own wagon slows.

“Khan Flavia!” calls Chrom. He steps off the wagon and maneuvers around Sumia’s Pegasus. “A wonderful surprise!”

“I didn’t expect to see you either, Princeling,” she says, descending to meet him. She lunges forward, and while he opens his arm for an embrace, she hooks to pinch his bicep instead. He lets out a yelp, which earns him an ear-to-ear grin from the Khan. “Not skimping on your sword training, I see!”

“We ought to spar, while I’m up here.”

Flavia chuckles. “Not a chance. I still need to send you home to the Exalt in one piece.”

“I’m glad to see the situation at hand hasn’t dulled your spirits,” he says, placing his hands on his hips.

“Aye, it’s not good—we’ve been culling the Risen since we set off last night. And those gods-damned brigands!” she exclaims. “The things they say!”

“It’s not like you to be so delicate, Flavia.”

“You’ve grown a sense of humor, too!” Flavia exclaims, laying a loving smack on his arm. “Share a little with that knight of yours, would you? I can practically see the stick up his ass.”

“Better keep that quiet,” Sully’s voice rings behind. “Old Freddy has ears like a fox.”

Flavia smirks. “A fine morning to you too, Sully,” she remarks. “Come along, you two. Let’s load up this cart so I can have a drink.”

+

The tome is alive.

This was Robin’s first lesson in magic. To wield dark magic is to bleed the book, her father said, to pull the life from its ink and cast it forth in destruction. As death begets death, magic demands a price. These are perfect things. Cycles, exchanges, designs—the tome is written to be taken away. Just as they live, only to return to Grima. 

A cool ache thrums through Robin’s Brand. Perhaps she is the only Grimleal whose fate after death remains uncertain. 

Today, she's come to training early, eager to squeeze in an hour with her books before another League council. The shadow of a haboob has settled over the grounds, coating the violet pavers in a ghostly layer of dust. To the east, the sun rises in furious red.

Robin turns her back to it. Three stacks of tomes lay on a marble table before her, each circumscribed in a differently colored circle of chalk. They’re set up for a challenge. A game. She ventures a smile, hoping maybe today’s training will tangle her brain enough to keep her mind off the coming war.

For Robin, every spell feels different in her veins. _Thoron_ is bright and frenetic, quicksilver beneath her skin. _Nosferatu_ blooms—a slow, heady shadow. _Arcfire_ is smoke, blackening her bones, scarring her senses, never letting her forget.

Guilt builds in her throat, but she forces it down. This is not a bane. The League should fear her. The _King_ should fear her. They are men who play at soldiers, and she is a girl who razes cities.

Prince Chrom should thank his wretched Naga she’ll only duel him with her sword.

Moans roll through the air, jagged and distant, as if sobbed through a steel pipe. Robin’s skin chills—but this is only practice. Henry has herded many a Risen on training mornings.

“Henry, are those my targets?” Robin calls.

No answer. She knits her brow. “Henry?” 

She whirls on her heels. Ghastly hands are prying apart the briars that circle the training grounds, unencumbered by the thorns. Robin focuses, taking stock of her rising pulse, and tries to count the Risen. There are ten—no, almost twenty. Their eyes scald red, burning black-edged holes through their rucksack faces. 

Robin grabs the first tome she sees, lightning gilt on its cover, and flips it open.

There is a trick to killing the Risen—strikes to the head and the heart yield dust, instant dissolution. Strike anywhere else, and you’ll leave behind a corpse, putrid and simmering with ichor. Robin doesn’t like messes. _Thoron_ bolts flee from her hand with fatal precision, skewering chests in flashes of bright and dark. As the Risen flood the grounds, she pushes and pulls herself through the spaces between them, leads them into each other, blazes a path. Victory shimmers on the dust in the air.

“Is that all you have for me, Henry?” she calls.

It is not.

Her gaze darts over the training grounds. The Risen seem to multiply, growing out of the others’ ashes. Violet flames waft off their shoulders. The daylight in Robin’s veins becomes a gloaming, weak and residual, a signal she’s almost out of casts. She is not yet afraid, but fear is planting tiny, bitter seeds in her stomach.

She picks up a new tome. The design unfamiliar, a spirograph of linking circles. Embossed blue starbursts. She’s never cast it, but the Risen are almost at her ankles—she cannot dawdle.

The Risen carry the smell of a battlefield, of cinders and days-old blood. Robin opens the tome and begins the recitation. The worlds snarl in her mouth, yet her heartbeat, a painful staccato, keeps her chant on beat. _It works._ Runes dance among blue spindrift at her fingers.

But something is wrong. Cold spreads the bones of her shoulders, then petals up her neck, around her throat. Choking. The sky stretches beneath her feet, black as poison, hungry as death. Pain cleaves her spine, but she digs her heels into the stone and keeps casting, chanting, splitting cursed magic through her veins as the world before her turns to bruises. She cannot lose. She cannot die. Not here. Not so pitifully.

Her father will never mourn her.

The pain becomes unbearable—her consciousness slips, a stone against ice, and she cannot find purchase. Her eyelids grow heavy. Fear blossoms, coiling like vines through her ribs, piercing thorns into her chest.

The last thing she sees is an arm of the night, bleak and starless, choking a Risen into dust.

+

Robin awakens to her father standing at her bedside, his hands clasped patiently behind his back.

“You survived my test,” he says. Displeased. Never satisfied. “I knew you would go for the _Thoron_ tome, first. It’s your crutch, a weakness disguised as strength. I put Aversa’s _Night_ beneath it, knowing you’d need to act fast, grab the most immediate weapon. That’s a powerful spell, Robin. Requires years of training. I’m surprised you fared as well as you did. But the vessel of a god should be doing better.”

Robin drags her palms down her face. Pain drives deep behind her eyes, flows in waves down her neck to the high of her back. “I could call you a bastard, but I won’t.”

“Some plucky mail girl left this for you,” he says. He draws his arms from behind his back and flings an envelope onto her bed. “Gods-damned Ylisseans. So polite, so _delicate_ —you’d think they were made of sugar instead of flesh.”

“Then are they worth a war?”

“Don’t get bratty with me child,” he remarks. “You’ve been in the war room for a week now.”

“Because I have no choice. I’m the Grandmaster of Plegia,” she says, teeth grit. “Would you leave now?”

“Where are you getting this mouth? Have you forgotten I am your Master?”

She wants so badly to spit on him. “I need to rest, Father.”

“No. That is insufficient.” He crooks a nail beneath her chin and tilts her face towards him. She looks for lostness in his eyes, hoping he too may fall to Gangrel’s same, predictable darkness, but sees only the disquieting gleam of intent. “You will call me Master Validar. As your sister does.”

“Master? When I technically outrank you?"

Validar huffs and pivots for the door. “You’ll train again this afternoon. With me. Until then, I’ll see none of you.”

“Wait,” Robin calls. “Where’s Henry?”

Validar pushes his mouth into a frown, and Robin’s heart drops.

“No—no, you didn’t…”

“You’re right. I didn’t. He’s at the training grounds with Tharja,” he says, and he’s grinning again, bright and brutal. “You just remind me so much of your mother when you’re hurting.”

Robin knots her fists in her blankets. She wills the anger to leave her, but it sticks to her voice, coarsening it. “Go, _Master_.”

His grin eases into a close-lipped smile—satisfied, at long last. He exits promptly, closing her bedchamber doors behind him, but Robin waits until she can no longer hear the echoes of his heel-steps before she opens Prince Chrom’s newest letter. 

_To Robin, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia:_

_Ha! A brat! I believe I must be stringing you through too many letters, Grandmaster, as it would appear you are running out of words. Since I am a good man, and I pity you, let me open my book of letters and often a few more appropriate suggestions:_

_-scullion  
-snoutpicker  
-wyvernshit  
-biscuitbrain_

_Of course, I think myself none of these things, but perhaps you could try on a few for yourself! Should fit akin to a well-tailored hat._

_To answer your question, though, no. Frederick does not write my letters, nor does he read my responses to yours. For such a ruthless soldier on the battlefield, he can be rather faint of heart when it comes to matters of propriety._

_Nevertheless, I do hope you’re keeping your sword sharp. Though it must be hard to drag such a jagged thing against a grindstone. If you have it in you to be smart, I'm sure you make do.  
_

_In Naga’s Name and Light,_

_Prince Chrom of Ylisse_

Robin reads the letter once more before setting in on her lap she laughs at the absurdity of it. Real laughter, bringing tears to the corners of her eyes. This is the prince of a country, trying at insulting her, and he doesn’t even know the Greater Archanean for “dictionary.”

+

_One Week Later_

“Milord, what is that you have there?”

Chrom’s head snaps up; he folds his hands over Robin’s latest letter, still secured in its envelope, as Frederick’s armored frame fills his bedroom doorway.

“Oh, nothing.”

Frederick paces into the room. With each step, morning sunlight ribbons across the trim on his armor. “More ‘jokes’ from Vaike?”

“You wouldn’t like them.”

Frederick lets out a long, tired sigh. “I know you’ve been writing to her. The Plegian Grandmaster.”

“Well, I couldn’t let her have the last word, could I?” Chrom stammers, his throat suddenly dry.

“That would have been the advisable option.”

“Peace, Frederick,” he says. He toys with the envelope, displacing the nervous energy in his hands along its creased edges. “This is little more than a spitting match. At some point, she’ll die, be it by my Falchion or the whims of fate, but until then? I don’t see why I can’t have my fun.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in fate, milord.”

“Oh, I believe in it,” Chrom says. “Fate is a presence. It threads all of us. But surely those threads knot, and fray. That lets us give them new course.” 

“I see.”

“You don’t care for my philosophies, do you?”

Frederick pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t _care_ for your correspondences with the Mage Grandmaster of Plegia,” he says. “But it appears as I am powerless to stop you—”

“A little rivalry is healthy for a soldier, is it not?”

“—I will have to get our dear Exalt involved.”

Chrom’s stomach lurches. “Don’t. Frederick, please. We shouldn’t worry her.”

“Then perhaps don’t do things that are so worrisome,” Frederick says, his voice cold and chastising. Chrom works his mouth to respond, but Frederick is already leaving the room. Presumably to tattle to his sister.

Chrom glances down at the envelope. At his name, written in Robin’s geometric hand. Guiltily, he cracks open the envelope and fishes out its contents.

_To Chrom, Prince of Ylisse:_

_My own retainer, Henry, cuts the fingers off the Risen and collects them in jars. If you’d like, I can gladly send one with my next correspondence. They do smell a bit gamey, though, especially after a long week’s travel._

_Sincerest regards,_

_Robin_

_P.S. Yes, even I have a retainer. My father is a Plegian duke. Which one, I will decline to say. Just know that should tragedy befall our Lord King Gangrel, and my father become King, I may one day rule the very land you tread._

_P.P.S. “Book of letters” you pompous wyvernshit it’s a_ dictionary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Just wanted to add a few notes to let you all know where I’m going with this:  
> -WHEW it’s going to be more than 12 chapters. We’re in for an adventure together. Up to you whether that’s good or bad.  
> -With the Grimleal being a sort of religious brotherhood, Robin refers to a lot of the higher-ups as her uncles and cousins, despite no blood relation. Her “sister” Validar mentions is of course Aversa, who I am SO excited to bring into this mess. She’s just going to cause more chaos!  
> -I love that part in canon where Sully calls Sumia “girlie.” Also, Sumia’s not going to be a potential love interest for Chrom, so set your love triangle worries aside. I just like her a lot as a character and wanted to include her more! Also she and Sully...horse gfs...  
> -That Plegian declaration of war will be reaching Ylisse very soon…perhaps on a certain Special Day in our prince’s life…


	3. CHAPTER THREE: A Heartbeat for a Corpse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!

**CHAPTER THREE: A Heartbeat for a Corpse**

+

The great artery that connects Castle Plegia to its most important chambers is known as Grima’s Throat. Like most of the halls in the palace, its walls bend together to form a curved ceiling, bracketed every few yards by protruding arches of muscle-red stone. Ivory sconces appear in similar frequency, alight with small, fragile fires.

Their light is beyond Robin. Her gait is one of rote fidelity, though there's an anxious pulse underneath. After six hours of meetings with her generals, formations and statistics—counters for every known Ylissean maneuver—still swirl about her eyes. Her head hurts. She needs a warm bath and a cup of tea, but a precious hour of daylight remains, bidding more work to be done, and terrible guilt if she doesn’t.

Silent footsteps bring a rush of air to her side. An arm slips through hers, lucent silk scraping wool.

“Hello, Tharja,” Robin says. She keeps her eyes ahead, but her companion sidles closer. 

“Henry’s waiting for us in the library,” she says, padding sharp-nailed fingers up Robin’s arm. She’s long grown used to Tharja’s clingy affectations—it aches her to admit it, but beyond Henry’s chaste kisses to her knuckles, it’s the most physical touch she ever gets.

“I know. I’ve been looking forward to it.”

“I’d like to try out some new curses today,” she coos. “On Henry, of course. Not you, dearest. Though there are a few more _scintillating_ ones I’ve devised especially for you, if you’re interested.”

Robin turns to her. Tharja gazes at their elbows as if the whole world lay within their juncture.

“And what do I always tell you?”

Tharja tosses her head in feigned betrayal. “No casting curses on friends.”

Robin puts breath behind her teeth, starting a response, but a shout from down the hall stops her.

“Excuse me, Tharja,” Robin says. She unbinds their arms and carries swiftly down the corridor, leaving Tharja lost and muttering in her wake.

The noise is coming from the throne room: as she nears, Robin can hear a girl. Young, high-voiced. Protesting. Robin throws up her hood and shoves through the doors.

If the main hall is Grima’s Throat, the throne room would be his Chest. Bowed vaults bind along the ceiling to form a ribcage shape, each beam strewn with black and violet tapestries. In the waning sunlight, the tattered fabric casts ghastly shadows—jagged, long-fingered things that bleed like inkblots across the walls.

Gangrel stands in the middle of the chamber, his hand drifting towards the wrist of an Ylissean Pegasus Knight. The girl is small and soft-featured—no more than fifteen, Robin ventures. Tears rake long plumes of mascara down her cheeks.

“What are you doing?” Robin calls.

Gangrel drops his hand. At the sight of Robin, a snarl warps his lips. “Grandmaster! What a surprise. We were just talking about you."

She blazes up the carpet towards them. “Who is this, Your Highness?"

Gangrel’s snarl becomes a monstrous grin, baring the scabs between his teeth. "Oh, just some little messenger," he croons. "I hear she has something for you. Though I just _can't_ get her to tell me what."

"If it's me she wants, then her presence should be none of your business," Robin says, fighting the dread growing in her gut. She gestures to the Knight. "Come here, girl. I'll see you out."

The Knight all but runs to her, withering into her side.

“You sure have gotten bold, Grandmaster,” Gangrel remarks. He threads his arms across his chest. _False restraint,_ Robin notes. _An illusory tactic._ “You’d think a good slap would right you, but you just keep coming back for more.”

“I’m not here to pick a fight,” Robin says.

Gangrel tilts his head towards the Pegasus Knight. “You know that’s a Plegian warlord you’re cowering behind?” he asks the Knight. She shakes her head. “Do you know how many Ylisseans she’s slaughtered? My, if we’re counting all the advances she’s planned, she’s killed at least—”

“Enough!” Robin shouts.

“You’re in no position to order me, Grandmaster,” says Gangrel.

“Yet I’m in plenty to leave. The both of us are.”

Robin offers her hand to the Knight. She takes it willingly; there are sweat stains on her gloves, the leather across her knuckles rubbed down to the lining. This is not the first time she has been afraid. Robin leads her towards the door, and Gangrel cries after them, but she grinds her own thoughts his words, sanding every _witch_ and _imbecile_ into neutral white noise.

“You grip your reins too hard, don’t you?” Robin asks the Knight. This is her own illusion, a code for _we’re almost there_.

“That’s what Commander Phila tells me,” the girl whispers back.

They breach the hall, and the doors slam behind them with a thunder. “Follow me,” Robin says. “Is your mount outside?”

The Pegasus Knight nods. “In the front courtyards.”

"What did he do to you?" Robin asks.

"Nothing. Not yet," she stammers. "But, I think he meant to strike me. Said I was talking back."

“That sounds like him. Are you alright?”

The Knight doesn’t answer, but by the iron vise on her hand, Robin knows well enough.

They peel out of the Throat and into the vast foyer atrium. Desert swallows circle overhead, flitting between the leafless, black-barked trees that bend and writhe towards the skylights. Dark magic, the ghost of ancient cinders, swirls the air in violet sparks. Robin peeks ahead of her hood, watching the Knight’s expression meld from fear into awe.

“What’s your name?” Robin asks.

“Anise,” she responds, though her voice is distant. “I don’t remember this from when I came in.”

Robin draws a finger through the air, outlining a tree’s crooked trunk. “It’s an ancient mirage enchantment, a magic as old as Archanea itself,” she says. “The trees only appear as the sun begins to set, and disappear as soon as it rises.”

“What about the birds?”

“Oh, those are very much real.”

Robin tugs Anise forward, out to the front courtyard. The sun, a foggy carnelian behind a curtain of silt, has begun its retreat beneath the ramparts. Robin squints through the glare. Anise’s Pegasus stands hitched to the foregate, right beside an unattended cart of rusted hatchets.

Anise sighs in relief. “Thank Naga, she’s here.”

“You’ve been bringing the Prince’s letters,” Robin states.

“Yes, Miss…Grandmaster?” Anise murmurs. She reaches into the satchel at her hip and draws out an envelope. “You’re Robin, aren’t you? The one Captain Chrom has been writing?”

Robin works her lips as she takes the letter. “Your Prince is only a Captain?” she says. “Strange. I’d imagine a man so arrogant would immediately appoint himself a general.”

“Oh, Captain Chrom is hardly arrogant. He’s so humble, and kind, and _handsome_ —”

“I see,” Robin cuts her off. Her nerves itch at the thought of anyone finding the Prince of Ylisse attractive. Not that she’s ever seen him—but with his insufferable disposition, the thought disgusts her nonetheless. “Anise, would you do something for me?”

“Huh?”

Robin looks her square in the eye. Fear and innocence reflect, spoiling Robin’s stomach. “Don’t come back here. Ever,” she says. “Tell your beloved Prince to find someone new to deliver his letters to court. I won’t see you in any more danger.”

“But—”

“If I catch him sending you back here, I will march into your kingdom and skin him from tooth to toe myself. Understood?”

Anise steps back, finally releases Robin’s hand. “Yes, Grandmaster.”

“Now go. It isn’t safe to fly around here at night. Especially not for an Ylissean.”

Anise skitters towards her mount, and Robin watches her loop the reins around her hand—only twice, and with deliberate ease—before launching into the sky.

“Gods bless her,” Robin mutters, and she swears she feels the old Castle shiver underfoot. 

+

Robin finds Henry and Tharja in the library, seated among open books and low-burning candles. She breathes deep—incense and spice mingle with the scent of old paper. It’s pleasant, after a day spent in a cramped room with ten sweaty generals. Tharja gestures to the seat beside her, and Robin takes it.

“What was all that about in the throne room?” Tharja asks.

Robin pulls a book towards herself— _Techniques for Modern Alchemy_ , based on the fine script at the top of the open pages. “His Highness, terrorizing the poor Ylissean mail convoy,” Robin explains. She flips to the book’s table of contents, but only skims the words. “I broke it up. The girl won’t be back.”

“That’s a lot of mail we’re getting from Ylisse,” Tharja remarks, “seeing as we’re about to go to war with them.”

Henry giggles. “Lady Robin didn’t tell you?”

Tharja straightens, her gaze dark. “Tell me what, lovely?”

“Well,” Robin starts. Her mind scrambles for a lie—anything to keep her secret from Tharja. “I reconnected with an old childhood friend,” is what she settles on. “He lives in Ylisse, now. We’ve been writing back and forth, all about trivial matters, really. I’ll be honest, he’s a bit of a bore.”

Tharja’s brow furrows. “Is this true, Henry?”

“Is what true?” a fourth voice joins in.

Robin looks up. Aversa saunters around the corner, her full hip dragging along the side of a bookshelf. Her shell-colored mouth is quirked in a curious grin, one that refracts the deep red markings on her cheeks. Static glues her white hair to her gown—pristine black velvet, with a neckline that plunges past her stomach, revealing her navel. _We have two choices for these bodies we have,_ she once told Robin. She was trying on a corset, she remembers, and Aversa was lacing her up, praising her altered figure, all while Robin wanted nothing more than to rip the garment off. _Either we hide them, or we hone them._

A mere look at the sisters-in-name could tell anyone what each had chosen.

“Can I help you?” Robin asks, her tone even. Diplomatic.

“Why so tense, little bird?”

Robin gestures to the book. “I’m busy.”

“Huh,” Aversa mutters, peering over the table. “That seems rather rudimentary for you.”

“Is father looking for me?”

“Actually, I am.” She sets her hands on Henry’s shoulders, rakes her fingers up and down his arms. He’s immune to her ministrations, his focus broken only a breath. “You don’t mind if I steal my sweet little sister, do you, Henry?”

“Heh. That’s a weird way to put it. Last time I checked, Lady Robin wasn’t mine to steal.”

Aversa rolls her eyes. “Always taking things so literally.” She lifts a hand and beckons Robin towards her. “Are you busy?”

Robin stands, smoothing her cloak. “Not yet.”

“Then don’t dawdle,” says Aversa. She pivots, revealing each sharp, threatening point of her backwards crown, and traipses back towards the library entrance.

Robin bids her retainers a short farewell, then follows Aversa into the Throat.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

Aversa sidesteps the question. “I heard about your little stunt in the throne room,” she says. “How adorably heroic of you.”

Robin remains poised. “The League tells me I’m a hero to all of Plegia.”

“And Ylisse as well, apparently,” says Aversa. “I’d expect a lengthy punishment during your training tomorrow.”

“Nothing I can’t withstand,” Robin assures her, though she knows her voice falters.

“Of course not. You’ll be ready,” she says. She strides ahead, waving over her shoulder. “Come, sister. We are going to raise the dead.”

+

Robin flies with Aversa to an old temple nestled near the foot of the mountains, one of the first constructed by the Grimleal. Its brutal jade façade echoes an age of secrecy, when places of Grima worship masqueraded as tombs. Swathed the ineffable quiet of the desert, it’s as though the place is lost out of time, stuck in the cracks between centuries. 

As Robin trails her sister to the temple entrance, Anise’s face haunts her. The poor girl. How many times had she flown so far to Plegia? And alone? It doesn’t surprise her that Chrom was behind this, brute that he is, but even he should be above sending small, vulnerable girls into the den of wolves that is the Plegian court. Then again, that is simply what Validar did to herself. 

Perhaps one day, little Anise will be a force to be reckoned with.

Robin lowers her hood as she bends her body through the temple entry. Darkness comes swift and blinding—Risen tarry here, certainly, and she has only a weak emerald blade on her hip, more decoration than weapon, to defend herself. She palms its hilt, but her hand aches for the pages of a tome.

Aversa strikes a fire with her fingertips. Her tomeless magic is even weaker than Robin’s—the flame is cold and meager, its light reaching only a few feet. Aversa leads Robin to an abrupt right, down a narrow, sand-clotted staircase, her steps measured, rehearsed. This is not her first time in this strange dead temple.

“Stop here,” Aversa orders. Robin obeys. In such complete darkness, it scares her not to; the shadows seem to reach for her, cloying at her back and sides, wrapping her in a chill that seeps through her strategist’s coat.

Aversa guides her flame to a stone brazier with a belly full of oil. It takes the flame as the land takes water, wholly and rapidly. Light spreads a bloodred conflagration, running the lengths of narrow, fuel-soaked canals to each next brazier, until the chamber takes full, red-stained shape. Amphitheater steps lead down to a sunken mosaic floor, where twelve daises rise at the positions of the hours. On a low center pillar, two stone tablets sit with edges touching, like the opening of a book. Aversa motions for Robin to walk down towards them. She follows, eager to wedge some distance between herself and the fast-licking flames.

Robin positions herself at the center pillar. She runs her fingers down one of the tablets, and her brow furrows. This language is not Plegian, or even Old Archanean. The characters, complex and tightly coiled, meander in crude diagonals from right to left, making it difficult to tell where one line ends and the next begins. It is only the smallest curl of punctuation, something like a fishhook, that sparks Robin’s memory.

“Ancient Loptyrian,” Robin murmurs. “In their calendar, a stone text would have dated to the 450s, the nascent stages of the Empire, but by the Archanean calendar—”

“Spare me the academic drivel, sister. Do you understand what we’re dealing with?”

Robin’s eyes widen. “You want to summon the Deadlords.”

“An advantage even our dear Grandmaster couldn’t have dreamed of.”

“Because it’s ludicrous!” Robin shouts. “We are not their masters, Aversa. They could turn on us the moment we summon them.”

“And what fun that would be! If I recall, you haven’t trained since yesterday.”

Robin steels herself, fingers coiled around the hilt of her knife. “I won’t do it.”

“I don’t recall providing you with a choice,” says Aversa. She strides closer. Tiny fires curl like living rings around her fingers.

Robin grinds her heels into the sand. “On whose orders?”

“Our father’s,” she says. “You must be ready, little bird. If we are to win this war, you may be called upon to summon the greatest of devastations.”

_Grima._ Robin dares not speak his name, but she feels him quiver, this fledgling oblivion inside of her. The mark on her hand sears.

It is strange how she fears the darkness so greatly, when one day, she will be darkness itself.

“Place your hands on the tablets,” Aversa continues.

Robin releases her knife and does as she’s told. The stone is cool, as if ice shelters within.

“Now repeat these words,” Aversa says. She walks around Robin, drawing a circle in the sand with her steps. The foreign words that follow must be the ones on the tablets—Aversa’s pauses follow the placement of each long, cane-like comma.

Robin attempts to repeat, but there is a harshness to the words, sharp edges that snag in her mouth.

When she falls quiet, Aversa grips the nape of her hood. “Robin. _Repeat. After. Me._ ”

“You’re going to get us killed.”

Robin can almost hear her sister grinning. “Call it a bit of mortal pleasure.”

Aversa releases her—Robin shivers. Her sister rolls through the spell again, and Robin repeats, word by word, breath by breath.

The flames die, then rise again, contused purple-red. The temple shudders—sand dances as if tossed in a pan. Fear crawls from Robin’s stomach through her limbs, freezing her, as black ichor erupts like a geyser from the dais at one o'clock.

“Mus, spirit of Raydrik, Baron of the Deadlords— _arise_!” Aversa calls.

The ground shakes harder. Magic jolts through Robin’s veins, only to spoil and rot like old fruit, gorging her with sickness. The sludge on the dais writhes and tosses. An armored hand pierces through, wreathed in a poisonous glow.

Until it isn’t armored. Until it is a child’s hand, black with blood and soot, reaching through the fire. Begging for mercy. The red dusk of the temple becomes unbearable, the heat cauterizing. The shadows have voices, and they scream.

Robin collapses. The flames around her wither to low, orange gloaming. Silence fills the room like thick smoke, and for that at least, Robin is grateful.

“Damn it all!” Aversa cries. “Robin, you had it! With our power, together, he was right there. He came to us.”

Robin doesn’t respond. The rough sand is almost pleasant beneath her palms. Something to scratch, to feel besides remorse.

“I can’t do it.”

Aversa is exasperated. “Gods, Robin. Are you made of glass?” she says. “If you can’t do this, what _can_ you do?”

A dry laugh rakes Robin’s throat. _What can she do?_ She can bleed poison from the pages of a book. Fill the bluest skies with thunder and lightning. Throttle villages with her flames, watching the children with their blemished cheeks and iron lances wither into ash. Regret her nearsightedness. Curse the Fell God that clamps his talons deeper in her heart with every kill. Condemn herself, because the children in the flames do not see Grima—they see her.

Aversa kneels beside Robin. “Look at me.” She cups her sister’s face, stroking long nails across her cheeks. Apology in her eyes. “Tell me what’s hurting you, little bird. I will kill it.”

“You can’t,” Robin rasps. “It’s already dead.”

Aversa breathes deep. “Then you must be rid of your ghosts, sister,” she says, moving her hands to Robin’s shoulders. “This is far from the only rite Father is training you for.”

“I know.”

“We will come again in the morning, and we will summon Mus, as I planned,” she said. “Then, if you’ve done well, I might let you kill him.”

Robin stares at her.

“No ghosts for the Risen, little bird.”

+

Aversa leaves Robin on the terrace nearest her chambers. The stars beckon, a rash of brilliant white against the dark, but there is sleep to be had, and, before that, a letter to be opened. She hopes that much can be a balm on her failure, if the Ylissean Prince is ever his foolish self.

When she reaches her door, she finds Henry standing outside. He stares blankly, drawing daydreams from a spot on the wall.

“It’s late, Henry,” Robin says. Henry turns to her, suddenly full of life. “You should get some rest.”

Henry doesn’t frown—he never does—but his smile blunts. “Aw. I had this idea for a hex I really wanted to tell you about.”

“Tomorrow then? Over breakfast?” Robin proposes.

Henry kisses her hand. When he frees his lips, his smile is back, luminous as ever. “I’ll be there bright and early.”

“Looking forward to it.”

He parts from her door, and she shimmies inside, careful to latch the lock behind her before stealing over to her desk. Chrom’s letter is wrinkled from so many hours in her pocket—she smooths it before slicing through the seal with her dagger.

_To Robin, Mage Grandmaster:_

_I’ll have you know my birthday is quickly approaching, and in celebration of the coming occasion, I have commissioned a miniature of my visage entitled “Our Most Pompous Wyvernshit” to be placed on the mantle of Castle Ylisstol’s great warming hearth._

_I’m jesting. About the painting title. It is nearly my birthday. And the portrait was at my younger sister’s request. Gods know I’d never willingly subject myself to so many hours of sitting. I prefer to be working on my sword. Readying for our duel, of course._

_Tell me, is it silly to want to know more about my fated nemesis before I behead her?_

_Let me ask—how old are you? This coming Sunday marks twenty-first, but we’ll be celebrating a bit later. I feel you’re older than me, yet I can’t base the inkling on anything more than a hunch. Do write soon. My curiosity burns._

_Sincerest regards,_

_Chrom_

_P.S. It’s unsightly to put the bulk of your letter in the post scriptum. Consider keeping your afterthoughts brief._

_P.P.S. Frederick saw the letter on my desk and asked me to tell you that._

“A terrible thing it is, that you of all people should bring a smile to my face,” she whispers, before reaching for the nearest of her quills.

+

_Prince Chrom,_

_You told me to write soon, so I turn have informed my courier to take his longest, most treacherous route possible to Ylisse. Should this letter reach you at all, it will be a testament to Plegian hardiness._

_We don’t celebrate birthdays in Plegia—but my own twenty-first was three months ago. How strange it is, that we’d be nearly the same age? Better to make us an even match, I suppose. Well, would that we were even. As much as I was looking forward to our duel, I believe my abilities have already tipped the scales in my favor. Our encounter should be utterly boring._

_Do send my regards to your sisters, Lady Emmeryn and Lady Lissa both. I pity they had to grow up with such a tactless brute of a brother._

_Sincerest regards,_

_Robin_

_P.S. Frederick, kiss my ass._

Chrom does his best to muffle his sniggering with his glove—an Ylissean council meeting is hardly the place to be reading the latest of Robin’s letters, but Chrom finds he simply can’t help himself. The letter had been burning a hole in his pocket since he swiped it off his desk this morning. Now, Robin’s choice reedy parchment finds itself among the vellum scripts of dukes and ministers. Ironic, he thinks, how her childlike script carries so much more vigor than their tutored cursive.

“Your Highness, might I ask what’s so amusing about my reservations regarding the Feroxi contract?”

Chrom looks up to find The Duke of Themis glaring at him, one feather-blond brow raised to the heavens. He’s as ruffled and prim as his daughter Maribelle, a jeweled brooch barely wrangling the mess of lace at his neck.

“I do believe my brother was making a joke to himself,” Emmeryn interjects. At the helm of the room, the Exalt bears a serene poise. “You’ll have to excuse him. He is a young man, as I imagine you were once, and seeing as your speech was not so riveting as the othets, surely you can see how his mind might have tread to distraction.”

The Duke blusters, purple as a turnip. “That’s hardly an excuse. My Maribelle—”

“Let’s remain on task, please, your Lordship,” says Emmeryn. She stands from her chair, and it’s as though all the light in the room pulls and bends around her. “I understand your trepidation concerning our alliance with the East Khan of Regna Ferox. However, just recently, she provided our Shepherds a hefty trade of armaments. Not to mention she’s sent her own spies into the Plegian mountains on _our_ behalf. Khan Flavia is a friend to Ylisse. I believe the same may be said for the ruling Khan Basilio, infrequent our correspondences may be.”

Chrom warms with pride, the letter momentarily forgotten. He is witness to history—there will _never_ be another Emmeryn of Ylisse.

“But has Khan Flavia informed you of her next bid for power?”

Emmeryn nods. “The tournament, yes. I plan to be there myself, in the audience.”

“She is asking for an Ylissean blade, my Exalt.”

Chrom rises to his feet. “And I’ve already agreed,” he interjects. A hush falls over the Council.

The Duke breaks it with his fist against the desk. “We cannot send our _Prince_ in for a blood-sport!”

“I command an army, your Lordship,” Chrom says. He steals a glance at Emmeryn. She meets him with an assuring smile, bidding him forth. “I can assure you, I’ll find no trouble in a little swordplay. In fact, quite the opposite. A duel with the West Khan’s fighter is just the challenge I’ve been looking for.”

“But you could die!” the Duke exclaims.

Chrom only smiles. “Please. Have some faith.”

Then he gathers his papers, Robin’s letter at the top, and walks out of the chamber.

+

June has settled like a damp fog over Ylisstol—five minutes in the garden, and Chrom can already feel a thin trickle of sweat down his back, the sun bringing a flush to his cheeks. The wind pushes slowly, as if it too is made sluggish by the heat.

“Captain!”

He pivots on his heels. Cordelia and Anise, their usual armor traded for light shift dresses, each stand with sumptuous bouquets of flowers in their hands.

“You did pick those out of the back of the garden, like Frederick specified, right?” he teases.

“Of course, milord,” says Cordelia. Shyness pulls a shroud over her eyes—her shoulders bend inward. Chrom has never understood how a woman so sharp and commanding on the battlefield seem so small in everyday conversation.

“We were picking them for your birthday party tonight,” she continues. “For decoration, of course. Unless you wanted to put one on your lapel, then I’m sure Sumia could help me with a boutonniere…”

Chrom scratches his head. “If I’m being honest, Cordelia, I’d forgotten that was tonight at all. How thoughtful of you to think of flowers.”

“Thoughtful? I…well, Frederick’s been hounding me.” She’s all but hiding behind the flowers now, her garnet eyes peeking above a flourish of white carnations.

Chrom and Anise share a laugh. “I think Frederick would simply like to catch up with you, Cordelia,” says Chrom. “I’ve told him time and again that assigning chores is a terrible way to talk to people.” 

“You should go talk to him now!” Anise cheers. “We just saw him down at the barracks, I’m sure he’s still there.”

Cordelia looks to Chrom, seeking approval, and he sends her off with an eager nod.

Anise lingers, worry dark and sudden on her face.

“Is everything alright, Anise?” Chrom asks.

“Captain, there’s something I have to tell you,” she says. “I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while—I just haven’t had the time.”

“Of course. I’m listening.”

She inhales, preparing herself. Then, “I can’t go to Plegia anymore. You’ll have to find someone else to send your letters to the Grandmaster.”

Chrom blinks. “How come? Did something happen?’

“It was King Gangrel,” she says, shrinking, arms protective around her flowers. “I was looking for the Grandmaster, but he found me first. I thought he was going to take me prisoner--"

Rage grows on Chrom’s face. His hand tightens around Falchion’s hilt.

“--but then, there she was. The Mage Grandmaster. She saved me.”

Chrom is incredulous. “Robin saved you?”

Anise nods. “Yes. Then she told me I should never return to Plegia, and that if I did, she was going skin you alive. Or something. I don’t know. She talks strange.”

“Violent and poetic. That would be Robin,” Chrom muses. _But she must have some sliver of a heart after all._ “I’m glad you’re safe, Anise. You took a dangerous job, and you’re terribly brave for it. But now, though it pains me to do anything at the Plegian Grandmaster’s behest, I truly cannot send you back.”

“That’s alright, Captain.”

“Tell me, Anise—what was she like? Robin. Did you see her face?”

Anise pauses, adrift in her memory. “Well, she scared me at first, but,” she trails off, “she was _beautiful_. And so kind. At least to me. She told me about Plegian magic.”

“The kind she uses to kill our people?”

“No,” Anise says. He can see the memory pulling harder now, painting undistilled wonder on her face. “This was beautiful, too.” 

+

Robin, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia, is not _kind._ Beautiful, maybe, if the dreamy look in Anise’s eye is anything to go by, but not kind. Chrom reads her letter again, this time while sprawled on his duvet, looking for any shred of this rumored kindness—but even her greeting to his sisters is a setup to insult him.

It is precisely her meanness, he decides, that makes him laugh.

“One day, Grandmaster—I’ll figure you out,” he mutters, holding the letter up above his head.

Then four knocks resound at his door, startlingly loud for the tiny fists he knows is making them.

“Hey, you big stinky toad!” Lissa calls from outside the door. “What are you doing in there? You’re going to be late to your own birthday party.”

“I’m coming!” he calls. He slips the letter under his pillow, but the thought of the Grandmaster of Plegia, that same terror of wind and blade he saw on the battlefield, showing any modicum of kindness chases him all the way down the stairs.

+

The Grand Terrace at Ylisstol Castle brims with lightning bugs and lantern-light, the trellises and columns curled twice-over in deep blue streamers. Flowers bloom out of vases on a smattering of tables, by the looks of them pulled from every which corner of the palace. Through the dancing forms of his friends and servants, he spots a table dressed in a colorful array of sweets, a three-tiered cake at the center. It’s all too much for something as trivial as his twenty-first birthday, but for the smiles that waltz pass him, he supposes it’s worth the fuss.

“What are you waiting for?” Lissa’s voice chimes behind him. Before he can turn around, she grabs his arm and pulls him towards the desserts. “You could at least say thank you!”

“It’s just…well, that’s a lot of buttercream flowers.”

“You can never have too many buttercream flowers, Chrom,” says Lissa.

Lissa’s gaze trails off—her mouth forms a sly crescent. “Hey. Lovestruck Exalt at nine o’ clock.”

He jerks his head to the left. Lissa isn’t kidding: Phila and Emm have never been so brazen with their affection. The sight of Phila, her usual armor traded for a soft shirt and trousers, with her fingers trailing up Emmeryn’s arm, gaze hooked on her lips, is almost arresting. In a joyful way, he realizes. Few people deserve true love more than Emmeryn.

Lissa yanks his arm. “Okay, you’ve seen it, they’re gross—now cake!”

He pops a brow.

“Please?”

He takes the knife that lays beside the cake platters. “And for that, I’ll give you extra flowers.” 

Once he cuts her slice, she disappears, surely off to find Maribelle.

Chrom, too, melds with the crowd—hands graze his shoulders, his arms, touches scored by wishes of ‘Happy Birthday, Captain.’ He feels the admiration like the heat in the air, and it brings an appropriate blush to his cheeks.

Then an arm links with his. Emmeryn. There’s a strange look on her face, something hinged between wryness and suspicion. “Can I ask you something brother? she says, lowering her voice. His nerves jolt, a sudden tightness in his heart— _Frederick really told her, didn’t he? About Robin?_

“What do you think of a harvest wedding?” she continues, pulling him along behind a column. “Something quiet, just our closest friends. A lot like this, really.” 

A grin breaks across Chrom’s face, full of joy and relief. “You’re going to marry her?”

“Keep it down!” she exclaims. A wonderful shyness overcomes her, so different from the regal posture she normally carries. “But…yes. One day. We exchanged rings, but we’d prefer to keep our engagement under wraps, for now.”

“Queen Phila, huh? It’s about time.”

“She won’t be Queen, Chrom,” Emmeryn says. “We decided on Knight Regent, instead. It suits her role better. And I’d never force anything on her she didn’t want.”

“Knight Regent. I like it,” Chrom says. “A sharp break from tradition.”

“As my rule has always been,” Emmeryn states. “As it had to be, given what came before.”

They pause a moment, wading shared memories of slaps and bruises, of a voice that seared like a branding iron, finding them at every corner of the palace.

“You know, brother, that I believe in peace above all else,” she says. “But there was a night, the same night you came to me with that horrible bruise on your cheek, and Lissa was crying in the corner of my room—I almost killed him. He was in his study, drinking himself to sleep. Even my fragile hands could’ve slipped a knife through his chest.”

Chrom strains to imagine it—Emmeryn, his sweet, perfect sister, driving a blade into their father’s heart—and his first thought startles him so much, he cannot help but speak it.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I had hope,” she replies. “I had hope that he could change, that the darkness inside of him was little more than a storm that would pass. For you, and for Lissa, I wanted to see him redeemed.”

“Do you think that axe to the head redeemed him?”

“I think only Naga can answer that.”

Before Chrom can respond, shouts rise in the courtyard, crashing over the music. They are calling his name in chaotic overlap, as if it is the only thing they know how to speak.

“CAPTAIN CHROM! CAPTAIN CHROM!”

He turns to attend to them, but then music quiets. The partygoers hush. Heads flip towards the balcony, and Chrom rushes to its edge. On the walk beneath, a platoon of villagers follows behind Stahl, Vaike, and Sully, their torches showing tired, ragged faces. Chrom’s stomach lurches.

“What’s happening? Are you alright?” he calls to them.

A boy with a cooking pot on his head shoves his way to the front. He holds a lance in one hand, a rumpled parchment in the other. Even at a distance, Chrom can sense his fear, like it’s a tome-spell pitched across the battlefield. He doesn’t speak.

“What’s your name?” Chrom calls.

“Donnel, Your Highness!”

“And what brings you here, Donnel?”

“The Plegian army has pushed through the border, sir!” Donnel exclaims. He shoves the paper towards the sky. “They’re declaring war on Ylisse!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience wrt this chapter!! I'm in school, have 2 jobs, and have had some really rad opportunities for my original work come up that I've had to attend to. On that front, I hope you'll forgive me if any of this seems rushed! We're starting to ramp up the plot, and I can't WAIT to share what I have in store for Chapter Four. At some point. Hopefully before May, but we'll see.


	4. CHAPTER FOUR: Of Course I Did

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last--I'm back! Since we last convened here, I've lost both my jobs (thx COVID), moved home (also thx COVID), finished my semester, and, on a much much happier note, started releasing my first original web-novel, which you can find the link to on my twitter @lumailia. It's gay and fun and I really went ham on the worldbuilding if you're into that. 
> 
> Anyway, without further ado Chapter 4, or as I like to call it, the Robin Chapter! Don't worry, we'll see a lot more of Chrom next time.
> 
> BTW, content warnings for a brief instance of emeto/vomiting (beginning at "This has happened before" if you want to skip) and a little more blood than normal.

CHAPTER FOUR: “Of Course I Did”

+

In Ylisse, no one forgets the night the dead fell from the sky.

The day before had been irrationally dry, the kind of parching cold that makes nails go brittle and lips split with blood-bright cracks. Chrom was nursing a scab on his own bottom lip, in addition to a sore shoulder he earned in a lengthy parry with a Plegian brigand. The Shepherds were near Southtown, just shy of the woods that marked the borderlands, and they planned to march on through until moonrise.

Except the moon did not rise that night. The sun sank, the twilight dispersed, and then the sky contused with red miasma, which endured for a long seven hours as masked bodies tumbled to the ground like rain.

The townsfolk called them _Risen_. The living dead. That night, they were an anomaly, but spare a week, and they became like any other disturbance in the march, a threat on par with raging bears and highwaymen.

In time, Chrom has learned their patterns. Some are bumbling, some are swift. Some zigzag their way through the battlefield, while others run in wind-straight lines, as if yanked forward by an invisible string. In worse eruptions, they crush together in a tangle, forming a mass of rotted skin and haunted blades that must be pruned like an overgrown hedge.

As the Shepherds roll into the steppes of Western Ylisse, a Risen horde intercepts them in broad daylight—a rare encounter, but not unheard of. With the effusive Lord Virion of all people at his back, Chrom rushes headlong into the thick of them. He still doesn’t understand it, how with some blows they fall, and others they scatter into ash, but with each thrust of his blade into their chests, the more black flakes of them spatter his clothes.

He pauses a moment, clamps a hand on Virion’s unarmored shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“You’d have heard it from me if I wasn’t, Captain.”

Chrom spins back around, only for a sudden burst of movement to send his heart into his throat.

An axeblade shines above his head—it comes within an inch of him before he slams Falchion against it. _To think, was this the last thing my father saw?_ Chrom shakes off the thought. The Risen axman presses downward, hoping to loose Falchion’s hold, but he’s too weak. Chrom throws off the axeblade and sticks him clean through his bloated gut.

“Gods,” he mutters. “That’s the last of them.”

Black ichor melts off Falchion’s blade as Chrom pulls it free. The axman flops into the dirt with a quiet thud, hollower than any man would make. Dust swirls up, a burial shroud that fizzles with the next gust of wind. Were it a Plegian soldier before him, Chrom might bid the fallen a breath of mourning, reverence for the exhale of life into death. But the Risen’s souls have long fled their corpses, and by his blade, what was already dead is now simply undone. 

Chrom looks out to the plain. His Shepherds are solemn pillars rising among the dead, the sun carving harsh shadows into their faces. Frederick moves towards him first, and then the rest of them come, battle-worn and listless, like a wildflower furling itself against a frost.

War has not flowed into Ylisse, but trickled—a few skirmishes, lost platoons to chase off, Risen bleeding from the wounds in the earth. Nothing close to catastrophic. Far in the capital, Chrom imagines the people go about their lives as normal, the war nothing to them but a distant chime of metal on the wind.

It worries him. Robin is keeping her men close for a reason, and he fears he only has a few days to figure out what.

“Milord, are you alright?”

Frederick keeps his distance—shoulder touches and embraces are spared for graver dangers, and Frederick dotes enough with his words. Yet his gaze, somehow both soft and chiding, is a salve on Chrom’s worries.

“I’m fine,” Chrom says. “Let’s clear the area, take a rest, then we’ll march again until sunset.”

Frederick nods. “At your command.”

He points his sword to the west, and they pick up their march, the battlefield left to memory.

Not far ahead, the plains green with thick grass and summer flowers—signs of nearby water. Clustered shrubs and few young trees spread their shade across the earth, promising a good place to rest and recoup. The caravan slows ahead of Chrom’s command; fighting in the blistering sun has made them all sluggish, sleepy. Chrom heads for one of the trees, dreaming of a nap under its shade, but makes it only to the edge of a shrub before his legs nearly give out from exhaustion. 

A tear-shaped leaf tickles his cheek. The shrubs bear clusters of tiny berries, each sealed in glossy black skin. Chrom picks one and rubs it between his fingers; the pressure bursts it instantly, spraying red-violet juice all over his glove.

“Don’t even think about it, Captain.”

Chrom glances up. Maribelle is standing over him, hands on her hips, her blond curls hanging limp and frazzled from the heat. The scowl on her face is a harsh and thorough bow, just like her father’s.

“Think about what?” he asks her.

“Those are poisonous,” she snaps. “The last thing we need is the Prince of Ylisse killing himself with a piece of fruit.”

“I know that.” Chrom flicks the ruptured berry into the dirt. “Do you really think so little of me, Maribelle?”

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever thought much of you.”

“Harsh words, milady,” he says, smiling. “Pray you’ll still be careful around me with your parasol. I’d rather a piece of fruit fell me than that infernal device you call an ‘accessory.’”

“You are _horrible,_ ” Maribelle all but squawks. She makes a hard turn on her heels, so abrupt it twists the grass underfoot, but she’s half-laughing as she leaves. “Lissa! Darling! Are you aware your brother has gotten _quite_ the tongue?”

Lissa’s voice follows as an echo. “What’d he do, now?”

“Attain the humor of a boor, apparently!”

As Chrom chuckles to himself, a shadow replaces the sun’s heat on his shoulder. Frederick kneels beside him, his armor clanking as he lowers into the grass.

“Might I ask why Lady Maribelle is howling about you across the field?”

“It’s nothing, Frederick,” Chrom says. “I’m always surprised she fares as well as she does in battle. You’d think she’d be more like her father.”

“And how is that?”

“Well, I once frightened him with a sneeze.”

Frederick chuckles. “I’m afraid Lady Maribelle is right about your tongue,” he says. “Speaking of which, I’d like to hear you’ve paused your correspondences with our enemy’s chief tactician.”

“Well, if that’s what you’d like to hear, you’ll be disappointed.”

“Milord—”

“Really, I haven’t heard from her since the war broke out,” says Chrom. “I was reading her last letter the night Stahl’s dispatch arrived with the news.”

Frederick’s brow pops. Chrom feels a trickle of sweat down his cheek. “And what did she have to say?”

“Trivia, mostly. And taunts. Though she did have some choice words for you.”

Both brows lift, this time. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, the Mage Grandmaster of Plegia has asked you—actually, both of us, if I remember correctly—to kindly kiss her ass.”

Frederick makes a retching noise, his face contorted in disgust. “Surely you didn’t write her back.”

“Of course I did.”

“ _Milord._ ”

“Though I have no way to know if my latest letter will even reach her. The civilian post has slowed in wartime, and it’s not like I can just send a Pegasus Knight over the mountains again.”

“When did you do that?”

“Does it matter? I already said, I can’t do it again.”

Fredericks palms his face and pushes a sigh through his fingers. “I almost wish you were having a love affair instead.”

Chrom laughs dryly. “A love affair, huh? And how is yours?”

“Excuse me, milord?”

“Listen,” Chrom says, lowering his voice. “I know I’m not exactly the smartest member of the royal family, but I know how you feel about Cordelia. So does Emmeryn. And Sumia. And probably Sully now, seeing as Sumia knows, and her lips tend to stumble as much as her feet.”

Frederick’s face shifts; the shade in his eyes betrays the sun’s jovial gleam. “Well, there’s nothing.”

“Nothing? You still haven’t tried to court her?”

“I did, milord. She denied me.”

“Oh, Frederick,” Chrom says, deflating. He’s used to Frederick’s sternness, even his rare stormy moods, but heartbreak looks altogether wrong on him. “I’m so sorry.”

“All is well, milord,” he says. “At least, should she one day land the object of her desires, I will be able to remain close to her, and serve her as a friend.”

Chrom squints. “I don’t understand.”

“It is her right to speak of it, not mine.”

Frederick rises, hands balled in fists at his sides, and stalks across the clearing. Chrom calls after him, but by the time he’s on his feet, Frederick is already halfway to Lissa and Maribelle,

Defeated, Chrom settles back to the ground, dips his head into the shade, and asks Naga why she’s given him too many mysteries for his wit.

+

At the desert’s edge, daytime heat relents to a chilly night. Stars and a full moon burn all the black in the sky to blue—the only shadows to be found are the Plegian Mountains, a dark guard disrupting a seamless horizon. In certain Ylissean folk tales, the mountains are told to be the scales on the back of Grima himself, calcified in his millennia of slumber. Mothers use the stories as warnings to children, telling them if they venture too close to the mountains, to the border, that Grima will awaken and end the world.

Such stories have never kept Chrom close to home, but in the desert’s near perfect quiet, the thought of a god sleeping among them feels less like a myth than it should.

He closes his eyes, breathes a deep gasp of cold. He doesn’t understand it, the way he can feel a part of something so large when he’s completely alone, yet he lets the wind runs through his hands and basks in it. The stars that watch him now saw the rise of every hero in his lineage, every noble path he hopes to tread. This pressure on his shoulders is a heavy one—but it fills him with hope all the same.

Somewhere across the desert, another soul reaches back. He feels it, true as Naga’s blessing on his shoulder. A joined wish, a missing half that shares his dream. _May we have peace,_ they pray together, though perhaps to different gods. 

+

The first night of the Solstice Week marks the Plegian League’s summer recess; Robin spends much of the day’s proceedings with her gaze on the windows across from her post, watching the slant of the sun migrate from one side of the room to the other. The heat is stifling. Her coat, normally a boon in the castle’s abnormally chilly halls, feels like a prison.

It takes the trill of Gangrel’s voice, the way he preens himself as his dark eyes fall on hers, for her to feel the cold again.

“Our dear Grandmaster,” he says. “Your formations are holding well on the border. It appears you’ve laid quite the trap.”

She swallows his praise the way she’d swallow a vulnerary—hastily, and only because she must. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“We expected as much from you. If only the Ylisseans presented more of a challenge. This all must feel a bit like throwing dolls around in the sand.”

“You don’t find it insulting to liken my forces to toys. If you’ll recall, it is our dear Aversa out there leading them.”

“They are _my_ forces, if you recall. I’ll refer to them as I please,” Gangrel remarks.

“She’s gone soft, hasn’t she?” asks Captain Asylas—a stout, bearded Duke from the southlands, but also her subordinate. Robin strains to keep her anger off her face. “Lord Validar, do you suppose she’ll deliver Grima by the first winter’s moon?”

Validar rises at his post. “Grima shall return to us whenever Grima decides. We can only exert so much control over a holy reckoning.”

“And what if the Grandmaster can’t complete her studies? Will we attempt the Awakening without a vessel?”

Robin grits her teeth, penning a scream of frustration. There’s no question about whether she’ll complete her studies. She’s already strong—stronger than all of them. So she still hasn’t revived all the Deadlords. So an ancient spell might leave her aching for days. Mortality is not weakness. The same men that decry her would wither and die if a fraction of her power coursed their veins.

But if they’re so concerned with their progress, she’d certainly be ready sooner if Gangrel hadn’t placed her at the masthead of this needless war.

“That is right, Captain,” says Validar. “If the Grandmaster remains unable to complete her studies of the faith, we will be left with no choice but to retrieve the Fire Emblem from Ylisse, then reverse its power to raise Grima for ourselves.”

Robin’s stomach pits at the thought. The Emblem is the Ylisseans’ most precious treasure, the very shield the Hero King Marth carried into battle. To take the Emblem would require laying siege to the whole of Ylisstol—and killing anyone who stood to guard it. But they are at war, and such a fear is no distant fiction.

Besides, in just a few short weeks, she will have the blood of their Prince on her blade.

“And what if we retrieve the Emblem, milord?” Lady Daiada interjects. Her face is staunch and proud; the jewels at her neckline shimmer like ice. “It’s incomplete. Without all the stones, there will be no way to awaken Grima.”

“Sable is here, in Plegia,” Validar assures her. “Gules we know is somewhere in Regna Ferox. And the other three—they could already be in the Emblem.”

“Truth be told, I don’t see why we’d trifle with some cursed shield in the first place. The Fell Vessel is right there, born of your own flesh.”

Validar deflects. “Tell me you don’t believe in silly Ylissean curses, Daiada.”

“That curse is far older than Ylisse.”

Robin clears her throat. “If I may interject,” she says. When no one turns her way, she looks for her gavel. It’s missing. Another attempt to silence her. Without it, she can only ball her hand into a fist and slam it against the desk.

The League, to her surprise, quiets on the echo.

“I said, _if I may interject_.”

Validar grins at her, mirth in his eyes—her victories are always his.

“If we truly want to ensure Grima’s awakening,” Robin continues, “our best course of action with the Emblem is to destroy it. Shatter the jewels, bury the gold, do whatever we must to ensure no Ylissean lord, present and future, can raise it against us.”

“There you have it, Daiada,” says Validar, his tone slick with triumph. “From the voice of Grima herself.”

Robin bristles. “My apologies, Father, but were I already the voice of Grima, I believe you would all listen to me at my first interruption,” she says. “I don’t like to repeat myself.”

Lady Daiada is stunned. Her mouth bobs, but the fracas of chatter that follows mutes whatever she says.

“Everyone, settle down,” Validar calls, waving his hands. “Let’s save our pearl-clutching for the holy day.”

“Say, have you always been such a pushover, milord?” Daiada jeers, re-armored, her chest suddenly puffed. “Were Lady Robin my daughter, I’d have given her a good lashing for that tongue.”

She produces a decorative chain from the bell-shaped sleeve of her robe and stretches it like a tailors’ tape. Robin clenches her teeth.

“You’re all weak, men that you are,” Daiada says. She swings her chain about—it comes within hazardous range of striking General Mustafa. “I’ve had mages in my ranks killed for insolence. Even less! Tell me, my King, is this insubordinate child all we have for a Savior?”

Silence constricts the room, until Gangrel, seized by inane amusement, bursts into a paroxysm of applause. “The Bloody Bitch of Plegia, everyone,” he cries. “Perhaps we should get in a good execution while she’s in town, just to show her the might of the capital.”

Daiada is silent, smart enough to hold her tongue against her King. Robin catches her glare, and her eyes slot even thinner, a wordless threat somehow louder than Gangrel’s victorious cackling. Her chain swings like a pendulum, an omen of time running out.

There will be blood before this Solstice ends. Not on Robin’s hands. But if she’s not careful, not tactical, it is hers that will be spilt.

+

That night, Gangrel hosts a grand feast for the League to mark the close of the session and coming summer solstice. As custom, he hosts it in his own throne room, the long table from the dining room brought in so the King might eat from his throne. Trays of food pack the table to its edges: mountains of long-grain rice, seasoned fowl in buttery sauces, soft crescents of bread that melt on the tongue. Servants hurry about in their holiday veils, pouring blackcurrant wine into quickly draining goblets. Robin takes a deep sip from her own—the wine is sweet and sharp, and the alcohol fills her head with a numbing buzz. 

She does not speak over dinner, only picks at her plate and drinks. If any shred of her will is considered insolence, she will not reward the League with the luxury of a conversation.

By the time her glass is half empty, a familiar white-haired figure slips into the room, dodging the sprawl of drunken politicians to find his way to her side.

“Hello, Henry,” she says, her tongue strangely heavy in her mouth. “I’ve missed you.”

“Lady Robin, I know it’s late, and you’ve been with the League all day—"

“Henry, please. Come join us. Have something to eat,” she says, then leans close, adding, “I could sorely use the company.”

“Milady, are you…drunk?”

“No, no,” Robin says. “Really, I’ve only had half a glass. See? You could come finish it for me.”

“There’s a letter for you.”

Robin sets down her glass. “From the Prince?” she whispers.

Henry nods and offers his hand. Robin wobbles a bit as she rises—maybe she _is_ drunk—and grabs hold of his shoulder. “How?”

“Someone brought it.”

“Who? Not that poor girl again.” 

“Um, a man? Boy? He was super weird—dressed like a thief, so I totally thought he was coming to rob you. But he just came to your study and dropped off this letter! Then he asked if I had any sugar for his trouble, so I gave him some of that Valmese taffy I got for you.”

“When did you get me Valmese taffy? Did you get the caramel kind?”

“Lady Robin, I’m really worried you might be drunk.”

“Where is he now? Taffy boy?”

“On his way out of the palace, I think.”

“Come. We have to find him.”

Robin yanks Henry out of the throne room, nearly tangling him in one of the ragged tapestries on her way. She turns briefly in the direction of her own chambers before Henry tugs her around, takes the lead, and guides her out to the courtyard.

For the servants and guards not needed for the dinner, the first night of Solstice festivities unravels under the moon. Music twists a bright tune through the air, and the crowd dances in rhythm—elbows link, bodies spin, laughter rises like a silver fog. A pang of envy spears Robin’s chest. If only she could be a normal girl for one night, indulge a little folly without expectation; it’s cruel the way the joy of others sucks the wind from her.

She shakes her head. The world tilts too far to the left, the moon fuzzy in the sky. Henry slips his fingers between hers, gives her knuckles a reassuring kiss, and draws her further into the courtyard.

“Which one is he, Henry?” Robin asks.

“Orange hair, black headband—”

As if on cue, torchlight glints on a fiery mop moving at a conspicuous pace through the crowd. Robin frees her hand and runs after him, Henry chasing at her heels.

“Hey! You!” she calls. “With the headband!”

The would-be thief whirls around. He has a face full of ruddy freckles, but his eyes are what strike her first, round and green and bright with cunning. 

“If it isn’t the Eminent Shadow herself,” he says, though it’s muffled by the grit of his teeth around a lollipop stick. He plucks the candy out of his mouth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“How do you know him?” Robin demands.

“I’m sorry?”

“Prince Chrom. You brought me his letter—how do you know him?”

“Look, I don’t know anybody. Some poor mailman just gave me one gold and a bag of sugar-mints to take this to ya,” he says. “Keep it between us, but I got another two gold after I shook him down.”

“Well, aren’t you just horribly proud of yourself?” she remarked. “You’re going to take my response.”

“What?”

“I’m hiring you, Taffy Boy. You better enjoy that, by the way.”

“It’s Gaius.”

“No, it’s Valmese caramel taffy, and it was a gift from my dear friend Henry.”

“My _name_ is Gaius,” he says. He looks at Henry. “Is she drunk?”

Henry nods. “Definitely.”

“Fine,” says Robin, crossing her arms. “Meet me here tomorrow, same time, same place. I’ll have my letter to Prince Chrom for you then.”

“Do I get to ask why the Grandmaster of Plegia and the Prince of Ylisse are exchanging handwritten letters?” Gaius questions.

“I hate him, and I need to tell him personally, frequently, how much I hate him, or else I will die.”

Gaius turns to Henry. “Yeah, you’re right. She’s super drunk.”

“She really does hate him, though,” Henry replies.

“You know what? I’ll come back tomorrow,” says Gaius. “Tell Bubbles here that coconut water zaps a hangover. She’s gonna to need it.”

“Coconut water? You got it,” Henry chirps. 

As Gaius disappears, Henry slides an arm around Robin’s shoulder and takes her through the crowd, past the throne room, and back to her own chambers. With every step, the colors of the hall smear and pool. Pain blooms behind her eyes.

Tharja is leaning against the door when they arrive. She immediately places her hands—cold as ice, almost enough so to be sobering—on Robin’s cheeks.

“You’re sweating, dearest,” she says. “Are you alright?”

“She just went a _little_ too heavy on the spirits,” Henry supplies. “And not the kind I like to play with.”

“Gods, Henry. You’re worse than me.”

Tharja opens the door with her hip, and together, she and Henry help Robin stumble inside. Henry runs to the bathroom, returning with a wet cloth, while Tharja seats her on the edge of her bed and gently peels her coat from her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” Robin mumbles. She glances between her feet; a film of strange static animates the swirls in the rug. “I swear, I didn’t have that much.”

Tharja’s nails snag in her hair as she undoes her twin-tails. “Shh. No apologies. Just let us take care of you.”

As Tharja combs her hair into one smooth, glossy stream, Henry curls the cloth against her cheek. She leans into the chill, and the kind, bony hand beneath it. _Is this what it’s like to be loved?_ she wonders, the thought bitterly clear amid her drunken haze. _No,_ she answers for herself. There is no love to be had for the vessel of Grima. She is an instrument, and they are merely fixing her broken strings.

“Should I stay with you Robin?” Tharja asks.

“Nah. Let’s leave her be,” Henry says. He drapes the towel across Robin’s eyes, bringing cool, blissful dark. “She’s gotta sleep this off.”

Henry adjusts her on the bed, removes her boots, and draws her blankets up over her body. Through her daze, she hears the door open and click shut as Tharja scurries out.

“She means well,” Robin slurs. “I just. I need to rest.”

“You sure do,” says Henry. He takes her hand again—his is warm and clammy, but she clutches it like a lifeline.

“Would you like me to read you the letter?”

Robin nods weakly. “Yes. Give me something to smile about.”

She hears the crinkle of paper, the pop of an envelope bursting open. Henry clears his throat, starts with a _Grandmaster Robin,_ but his voice becomes nothing but white noise as she plummets into sleep.

+

There is something awake inside of Robin. She feels it, a frigid fire blazing under her skin, oiling her nerves. Talons scrape the lining of her stomach. Dusk-dark feathers fill her chest. She rolls onto her side, but the pain only intensifies, knifing from her ribs down the lengths of her legs. With a whimper, she casts aside her blankets and stands, shakily. A fuzzy sensation fills her hands.

This has happened before. That night in the village, before the sky turned red and the world turned to rot and the children who came out to look perished in her flames. She’s losing control. Being shucked from her body like a pearl from a clam.

“Oh gods,” she whispers. Nausea grips her—her mouth grows slick. _It’s the Awakening. Grima is here. He’s come to take me._

Drool running from the corners of her mouth, she pushes towards the door. _Am I scared? No, I can’t be. I have to find Father…_

Pain slices through her frantic thoughts. She gasps, vision blurring, and doubles over and vomits onto the floor.

“Shit,” she mutters. Acid scorches her throat as she retches again. “Henry!”

A rustle from somewhere in the room. Henry, who must’ve fallen asleep in one of her sitting chairs, is at her side in moments, steadying her from the back.

“Lady Robin? What’s happening?”

“Henry, I think—”

She’s sick a third time, tasting blood with the bile. When she finishes, Henry touches her forehead, and his hand comes away damp. “You need a healer. Now.”

Robin can’t even nod before she goes limp in his arms.

+

When Robin wakes, Validar is standing over her bed. Not _her_ bed, really. In her weakened state, the narrow infirmary cot offers only the illusion of comfort. Slowly, she lifts her head to face her father. There is no sympathy on his face, no concern. Only a shade of anger, fiercest in the shadows around his eyes.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I want to say that I’m tired of finding you like this,” he says. “But this time, I must forgive you.”

Robin tries to laugh, but her stomach is full of lead. “Gods, how kind of you.”

“You were poisoned, Robin.”

“Huh?”

“Lady Daiada of the Tundralands. She poisoned your wine at last night’s feast,” he said. “The berry she used is native to Ylisse. How she got her hands on it, I’ve no idea.”

Robin sinks beneath her blankets. “Mm. That explains a lot.”

“No matter. She’ll be put to death at sunset. You’re welcome to watch, but I can’t imagine you’ll be well by then. The healers have made a terrible fuss over you.”

“I must be such an inconvenience,” Robin says dryly, though there’s a sour bite of truth to her words. “Where are Henry and Tharja? I’d like to see them.”

“Your pale chicken of a retainer is outside the doors,” says Validar. “I’ll send him in.”

Henry replaces Validar in a few quick-footed seconds—he collapses beside the cot and throws his arms around Robin, nuzzling his hair into her cheek.

“A little room to breathe, Henry,” Robin mutters.

He raises his head. “Oh gods, Lady Robin. I thought we were going to lose you!” he exclaims. “You know I love death and all, but…I was so scared. I couldn’t stand the thought of you dying. Especially not like that, sick all of yourself and stuff. You’re going to have a badass, bloody death, right?”

“I’d accept no less, Henry,” she says. “It’s alright, now. Whatever berry she tried to kill me with wasn’t worth its mettle. I’m going to be fine.”

He leans in again, this time to whisper. “I brought the letter, if you want to read it.”

Robin forces a tired smile. “I’d like that.”

Henry slides the opened letter from his belt and places it in her hands.

_Grandmaster Robin,_

_I would tell you my sisters send their regards, but for the good of us all, they do not know of our continued correspondence. You, Robin, are a bitter secret—best kept on the page, and not the tongue._

_In order to not make a fool of myself, which I have been unfortunately prone to in the past, I have been spending some hours in the palace library, conducting a bit of research on your people’s culture. Is it true that picked snakes are considered a delicacy among the Plegian nobility? The thought of how that must taste makes me shudder. However, your music fascinates me. I’ve never seen a “Beggars’ Flute” before—I can only dream of how it sounds._

_Anyway, I was reminded of you today when a soldier of mine, a Valmese expatriate, invited me for a drink. He is a terrible person, utterly insufferable, but a good fighter. I imagine your comrades must say the same about you. Perhaps the next time I see one of them on the battlefield, I’ll ask._

_Worry not—I’ll be sure to report back on my findings._

_Sincerest regards,_

_Chrom_

Robin adjusts against her pillow. “Well, His Highness is awful as ever,” she says, to no one in particular, but Henry is right there, listening. “But so curious. It’s almost endearing.”

Henry taps the heel of his hand to her forehead. “You’re still sweating, Lady Robin.”

“Let me sweat it out, then,” she says. “We should send him a piece of music. For the Beggar’s Flute. There’s a whole reserve of sheet music in the library.”

“That’s a very nice thing to do for someone you hate.”

“I’m feeling generous,” she says. “Must be the brush with death.”

“You should really get some rest, milady.”

She squeezes his hand, then gives him back the letter. _For safekeeping,_ she’d say, but he already knows. “Thank you, Henry. For everything.”

+

At the sinking of the sun beneath the mountains, a great bell tolls, shaking Castle Plegia to its iron bones. Robin first feels the sound behind her teeth, then in her ribs, disrupting the rhythm of her heart. These are not the bells of war. Those would echo through the city, every belfry in every temple pulsing with the beat of destruction. No, this is the execution bell. It is a solitary peal, emanating from the center of the Castle, and it is the last sound Lady Daiada of the Tundralands will hear.

Robin does not want to see her die. Gangrel is no swift executioner—for a crime against Grima’s vessel, he will carve Daiada alive, write his victory in the sand with her blood. Yet Robin cannot help but rise from her bed and walk into the hall, lured by the bell’s apocalyptic dirge. The further she walks, the corners of her vision darken, a void reaching in. The poison, she thinks, but there is no pain this time, no infernal flutter in her chest.

She blinks, and Validar is standing before her, his face smug, triumphant. Strokes of red-orange waver around his body— _sunset,_ Robin realizes, as the courtyard stone fills in around his legs.

“What is this?” she asks.

“The first of many hurdles passed,” he tells her. “Nothing shall keep us from our goal, Robin. You _are_ the Fellblood, and any skeptics must be silenced.”

Dread lances her spine—she shivers, fear and rage a vicious coil within her.

“It was you. You did this to me.”

“Of course I did,” he says. “Vanity blunts the senses, Robin. You think Daiada would know Ylissean nightshade from the common currant?”

“You poisoned me,” she says. Her voice shakes. “I could’ve died. What then? Where’s your precious vessel?”

“No, you’d have never died. I’m too much careful for that.”

Unwanted tears scald her eyes. “I’m your daughter, Master Validar. Does that ever occur to you? Ever?”

Validar chuckles. He has always been a bad man. She’s known this much since she was a child. But for the first time, Robin looks at her father, the man who made her everything she is, and sees someone truly, unforgivably wicked.

“Don’t go getting any grand ideas about your humanity, Robin,” he says. “You are no more than the means to our end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading!! After chapter 5, I'm going to do a fun interlude that's going to have a big impact on the story, then we'll be moving into the next arc!! If you haven't given up on this fic, thank you for your patience. Life is crazy and I'm a busy lady, but I'm determined to see this story to completion.


	5. CHAPTER FIVE: These Strange Liaisons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Back with another chapter. I said this would be the last of this cour, but I was wrong--so as not to bombard you with a 10K+ behemoth of a chapter, here's 5, and we'll round out this arc at six. I like to think of this chapter as the calm before the first of many storms...hehehehe

CHAPTER FIVE: These Strange Liaisons

+

The war table is chaos. Chrom floats his hands over some one thousand thumbtacks, all pinned sidelong and shallow like crooked metal graves. Beneath them, Archanea spreads a tea-colored convolution of mountains and valleys, rivers drawn in blood-dark lines from source to sea.

“We could cut up the North-road and go back south once we’re past the mountains, hug the coast of the lake. We’d be close to Ferox, then, should we need to send for backup,” says Chrom, tracing his spoken path along the map. “It is what I offered Flavia my blade for, anyway.”

“I thought you did that for fun,” Stahl pipes up. He has one hand on his armor’s bulky hip, while the other desperately smooths a flyaway lock of hair. 

Were Chrom in a better mood, he’d respond with a cheery quip, maybe, _I said it would_ be _fun, Stahl. But alliances are bargains, are they not?_ Instead, he grumbles and goes back to placing his formless toy soldiers around the map. There are only so many ways to funnel into Plegia. Breaking up their forces is a must—the valleys form the holes of a sieve, countless vein-narrow holes to slip through. But while Plegia can’t guard them all, if Chrom runs the Ylissean Army too thin, they’ll risk too many outmanned encounters, too many deaths.

Chrom’s head hurts. He’s never been fond of puzzles, and he’s near worthless in chess. Phila is the closest he’s met to a career strategist, but she’s far away in Ylisstol, prepping a bright-eyed battalion of Pegasus Knights and no doubt soothing his nervous sister. _Emmeryn._ A new ache finds him—lower, between his ribs. This baseless war is unfair to all of Ylisse, but most of all to its greatest peacemaker.

 _But without the war, you’d have no chance kill Robin,_ whispers a voice in his head, not entirely his own. He shirks it off; if he wants to be anything like Emmeryn, his people must always come before his temper.

“We must think of a spot to build base, milord,” Virion interjects. “It may behoove us to go south now, take the woods through to the sea. We’ll have timber, and we could call up the boats from the southern port, then sail across.”

“If there are any Plegian spies in Ylisse, they’ll be at the ports. To call up the ships would be far too dangerous,” Frederick counters. Chrom looks up from the map just in time to watch Cordelia duck her head as he speaks.

“We need a tactician,” Chrom declares. “A real one.”

“You could give old Teach a shot,” Vaike offers. He picks up a tack and turns it between his finger and thumb. “Besides, once the first bastard starts swinging, these guys here?” He waves the thumbtack, then drops it unceremoniously back to the map. “Tiddlywinks.”

Miriel adjusts her glasses. “This is why he said a real one, Vaike.”

“Then why don’t you do it?”

“Because my wartime duties of magiscience and medicinal alchemy are far too demanding—I’m allowed no room for such a new and brazen pursuit as a strategist,” she says. “Besides. I’m afraid I’m too nearsighted.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Miriel peers over her glasses, a lilt of a smirk on her lips. “It means,” she says, “my best sights and plans are reserved for what’s right in front of me—rather than far away.”

“That’s it,” Sully calls from the back of the tent. All heads swivel towards her. “If I’ve got to listen to this all night, I’m kicking your arses right out of this tent.”

“You got the Captain’s permission for that?” Vaike challenges.

“I got permission from these boots!” She throws her left leg towards Vaike’s face—a metal plate hugs the red edge of her boot. “Steel toes, ya arsehole. Rip your knickers right in two.”

“I thought that was Miriel’s job,” says Lissa, her smile a devilish white scythe.

“Milady Lissa!” exclaims Frederick.

“Enough!” Chrom shouts. “All of you. We need to set a spot for base in time for Sumia and Cordelia to get word back to Commander Phila. That means tomorrow, sunrise—no later. So unless you all want to be up before the rooster crows, we need to come up with a firm plan tonight.”

“Maybe you should rest, Captain,” says Sumia. “I’m sure Cordy and I will be fine.”

“That’s kind of you, Sumia, but I doubt any of us will rest well until this is all figured out.”

“Speak for yourself. Soon as The Vaike’s out of here, he’s hitting the hay,” says Vaike.

“We could just go straight through the mountains, then,” Cordelia suggests. “If there’s a path of least resistance, that’s where the enemy will be waiting. I think it’s better we risk obstacles than bloodshed.” 

“That…just might work,” Chrom says, tracing a finger through a particularly cramped valley, and Cordelia beams. “Thank you, Cordelia. I’ll keep that in mind, and we can reassess in the morning.”

“O-Of course, Captain.”

“So we can go to bed?” Stahl asks.

Chrom turns his gaze from the map to ten weary faces, to cheeks rimed in scars and eyes half-closed, to the soldiers and friends he prays he can bring home, and gives a decisive nod.

+

With each day the Shepherds push towards the border, the mountains swallow more of the sky, as if some great force were driving them up through the earth. This close, Chrom can see pockmarks of firelight winding from base to midmountain, the torches of the brave border towns whose founders merely laughed at the thought of living on the back of a god.

Chrom closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting the chill of night fold over him. Slowly, he realigns, the cold soothing his bones, the sunbaked earth a little firmer beneath his feet. When he opens his eyes, someone is coming towards him.

He draws his sword. The campfires behind him offer just enough light to etch the planes of his visitor’s face: his features are foxlike, his eyes half-hidden under overgrown bangs. In one hand, he carries a parcel. In the other, the unmistakable shine of a dagger.

“Hold it, buddy,” says the stranger. He tucks his knife into his belt. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Who are you?” Chrom asks.

“We’ll get there.” The stranger holds out the parcel—there’s an envelope tacked atop it, the whole thing tied together with a thick strand of twine. “For you, Your Highness.”

Chrom seizes the parcel. He has to squint, but he can make out his name in Robin’s jagged handwriting on the envelope. “How did you find me?”

“Followed my nose.”

“What?”

See these pockets here?” The stranger pulls at the pockets of his baggy pants. “They’re for two things: sugar, and secrets. And both, bum for you, are finders-keepers.”

“You still haven’t told me your name.”

The stranger points to Falchion’s blade, still outstretched. “Maybe put away Big Pointy here, first. Then we can talk.”

With a careful eye on the stranger, Chrom slips Falchion back in its sheath. “You know her? Robin?”

“I’ve met her, yeah. A real character. Especially when she’s drunk,” he says. “My name’s Gaius, by the way.”

“Wait—you met the Grandmaster of Plegia when she was _drunk_?”

“That’s her story to tell, Blue,” says Gaius. “Listen, I got some real tasty taffy out of her end of the deal, so if you want me to come back in the morning to ferry off your response, I’m gonna need you to pay up with something extra sweet. I did cross a desert in a smelly merchant’s wagon to get here, after all.”

“We don’t have any…candy in the provisions.”

“What about fruits? Pastries? Muffins?”

Chrom scratches her head. “Er…we might have some oranges.”

“Eh, that’ll do,” says Gaius. “I’ll be back around first thing in the morning.”

Gaius starts to turn, but Chrom stops him. “Hold on,” he says. “You cannot tell _anyone_ of our location. Especially not Robin.”

“Then that’s gonna be two bags of oranges. Or no deal.”

“Okay, done.”

“Then you’d best get writing, Blue,” says Gaius, adding a cheeky salute from the brow. “I’ve got places to be.”

+

Chrom slinks back to his tent in semi-silence, a childhood practice dulled by his unfortunate heavy footfalls. Frederick is on first watch tonight, but to Chrom’s luck, Sumia is with him, chatting him up about a special Pegasus shampoo she found at the market in Ylisstol. He makes it behind their post in a few breathless moments, then ducks into his tent.

His tent is cloistered in the middle of camp—but not too middle, so as not to draw suspicion of a prince behind the canvas. Inside, his lamp is still burning, washing the tent walls in oily light. He sets the parcel on the table and slides out the letter, places it aside. Like he’s always done with birthday gifts, he goes for presents first, cards second.

He shucks off the wrapping to find a cedarwood box, unpolished and leaked through with something pea-green and sour. Clipped to the top are two eaves of paper; the title text is clearly Old Plegian, a pastiche of deep ink gashes and thin, wiry strokes. Beneath it, the page is filled with the thin bars and spaces of a staff, the tadpole shapes of music notes.

“How strange,” he mutters. He sets the music down and slowly cracks open the box. Inside, nestled in a bed of night-black silk, is a Risen’s lopped-off hand, salt-dried and let of its ichor, each leathery finger curled down except the middle one.

Despite the stink, Chrom chuckles. “Well met, Grandmaster.” He picks up the hand, studies its flattened veins and shriveled skin, the hollows where muscle used to swell, then rests it on the table and trades it for her letter.

_Dear Chrom,_

_This letter arrived rather swiftly. Do I have reason to believe you’re in border territory? If so, you must try the pickled snake from the windward villages—it’s absolutely delightful. Just remember to check for any stray venomous fangs; I wouldn’t want my arch nemesis to meet such a pitifully boring end. Not when my sword through his chest would be so much more entertaining._

_For a prince, you certainly lack wordliness. Perhaps it’s your Ylissean pride that’s blunted your senses. That said, if I’ve stoked your curiosity, I must consider it a benefit to your people. To quote an old Plegian parable: “woe to he who treads the footprints of a fool.” The fool being you, of course. In case that one went a bit over your head._

_No matter, as this marks the third month of our correspondence, I’ve added a gift to your parcel: a small piece of music for the Beggars’ Flute, but it can be transposed for a standard flute, as well. Henry also insisted on adding a gift, thus the mummified Risen hand. The pose was my own idea._

_Do take care on the battlefield—I’ll be thoroughly disappointed if some Risen lancer gets the honor of spearing you in my stead._

_Sincerely,_

_Robin_

A rustle sounds behind him. Chrom slams the letter down and pivots, coiled up like a thief caught in the act. He eases, though, when he sees it’s only Lissa, a blanket tugged tight around her shoulders.

“Hi,” she says. “Do you have any matches? My lamp went out.”

“I’ll come light it for you. Just give me a minute.”

Lissa looks past him, her face caught somewhere between disgust and intrigue. “What is _that_?”

Chrom twists around—and goes red as a plum. The Risen hand is still in full view on his cot-side table.

“Haha! About that,” he starts, facing Lissa. “It’s…one of Miriel’s experiments.”

“Did you steal it? She’s going to know,” Lissa says. “And then she’s _definitely_ going to kill you.”

“No! No!” Chrom exclaims, waving his hands. “I’m sorry. It’s not Miriel’s. It’s…mine.”

“Why would you want a severed Risen hand? That’s so gross—even for you.”

He clears his throat, hoping the candles are dim enough to disguise the blush on his cheeks. “Well, you see, I have a friend. A childhood friend, yes. She lives in Plegia, and she sent me that lovely Risen appendage as a prank,” he stammers. “You know. Like those frogs that love to find their way down the back of my shirt.”

Lissa puts her hands on her hips. “No way. I know all your friends, and none of them could prank you better than me. Where did you _really_ get it?”

Chrom lets out a groan. “Fine. I might have started a little epistolary spitting match with the Mage Grandmaster of Plegia.”

“Excuse me?” Lissa shouts.

Chrom grits his teeth. “Keep it down!”

“You mean _the_ Grandmaster of Plegia?” Lissa half-whispers. “The evil magician you saw in that skirmish near the western woods and immediately declared your mortal nemesis?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” Chrom sighs.

“And now you’re just…friends?”

Chrom drags his hands down his face. “No! No, we’re not friends. We’re enemies. Just like you said. I sent her a threat upon her life, and she replied, madwoman that she is, and neither of us plans to let the other have the last word so we just keep…writing each other.”

“Oh, Maribelle is going to scream when she hears about this.”

“Maribelle is going to do no such thing, because you are _not_ going to tell her.”

“Why’s it such a big deal?” Lissa asks, then in a beat her face droops, her mouth a worried pink ‘o.’ “No. You don’t think your letter started the war?”

Regret frizzes white-hot down his spine. “I…never considered the possibility,” he mutters. “But Gangrel and Robin have been agitating the border for years. The declaration was hardly a surprise.”

“Robin?” Lissa asks, brows drawn.

“The Grandmaster.”

“Oh my gods. You’re on a first-name basis. That’s adorable.”

Chrom clenches his fists. “It is not adorable, Lissa,” he says. “I…I’ve made a terrible mistake, haven’t I?”

“I mean, you could always stop writing to her,” Lissa suggests. She points to the Risen hand. “Unless you’re just dying for more of those, of course.”

“Do you promise to keep this a secret?”

“Do _you_ want more Risen hands?”

“No. It’s not about that. This could be a good thing,” he says, but when Lissa’s eyes narrow and he sees a bit too much of their sister, he adds, “The more she opens up to me, the more information we can get. It’s tactical.”

“See—now you’re using your noggin.” She reaches up and knocks on his forehead like it’s Maribelle’s door.

“Now, Frederick has first watch tonight,” says Chrom, lifting the Risen hand off the desk. “What do you say we stick this under his pillow?”

+

Robin wakes to a bloom of cold against her cheek, her body molded in a tired crescent against sand and stone. She blinks, slowly—the red dark of the temple returns to her in bursts, spreading across her vision like ink dropped in water. Sand sloughs off her coat as she rises, first to her hips, then her knees.

Surprise wrings her chest. Mus sits half-formed across from her, jutting from a pool of liquid shadow. He is bulbous and ugly, his armored face shaped like a broken church bell. Red fires gleam in place of his eyes.

“You’ve been watching me,” Robin says.

He is dead, unbreathing, yet Robin swears he _exhales_ , a rough, metal-plated sound.

“Bastard,” she mumbles. Steadying herself on the temple’s center podium, she pulls herself to her feet. The other Deadlords appear around her in less lucid fragments: Simia’s shoulder, Anguilla’s arm, Draco’s shark-fin helmet. Not her best work, unfortunately, but a fair attempt nonetheless.

She rubs a growing ache between her eyes. _Gods, how long have I been out?_ she wonders. But it doesn’t matter. She needs to put the Deadlords back to sleep and report to her father.

_“The…Defile…”_

Robin jumps. Mus’s black slat of a mouth hangs open, the red fires brighter, more alert.

“You do speak,” Robin says, though she can barely her voice over the thunder of her pulse in her ears.

Mus takes another pained, mechanical breath. _“The Brand…it…sees…”_

Robin clutches her gloved hand. _No, no._ She closes her eyes and recites the sleeping cant—the shadows toss and burble as the Deadlords recede, sinking like poor desert creatures mired in quicksand. The moment they’re silenced, she sprints up the stairs, out of the temple and into the blinding blue day.

+

The soldiers’ barracks at the Plegian capital are something of their own miniature city, a canyon of clay-brick apartments and terraced training grounds, cut through by a red stone avenue that forks around a succulent garden like a wyvern’s sandpaper tongue. Today, merchants blot out the garden with their stalls and displays—it’s the one day of the week they’re permitted on the grounds, and by what Robin can gather from their shouting, it’s nearly a war of its own to reap the most military coin. The roadway smells of fish and fruit rind and sweat, all sour under the sun, yet it’s a welcome reprieve from the cold and dank of the temple.

Henry strolls along at her side. While he chatters about the displays, she tallies every soldier that passes with a weapon and a scowl, likely headed to join Aversa’s troops in the Border Pass. Some salute Robin, but others are moving too fast to spot the face beneath the hood.

“Have you seen him yet?” Henry asks her.

“I don’t think my father would come this way, Henry,” Robin says. “Gangrel’s the one who doesn’t mind lazing among the common folk.”

“Well, we’ve got to find him somewhere.”

Robin shrugs. “If I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ll mind if we don’t.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Henry.”

A familiar figure cuts the crowd ahead. General Mustafa approaches with muscled heaves of his shoulders, causing the wyrm-skulls he wears to clatter and thunk. Henry waves him down.

“Henry, my boy!” Mustafa calls. He slings his axe onto his back and ruffles Henry’s hair. “I’ve got a fresh bag of peaches at home with your name on it.”

“Aww, you’re the best, Mustafa.”

Mustafa turns his scarred gaze on Robin. His fatherly smile fades as he bows, one hand over his heart. “Your Eminent Shadow.”

Robin feels a twinge in her chest, unbidden. Mustafa is her ally, in the League and in war—when she was a girl, she called him ‘Uncle.’ She wishes he wouldn’t address her so coolly, but to say such would show weakness.

“General,” she says, barring the emotion from her voice, “You’re back from the valley.”

“Aye. I bring word from your sister.”

“How does she fare?”

“The Inquisitor is fine,” he says. “It’s a number of her men that aren’t. There’s been an outbreak of sickness among one of her scout platoons, they think due to some contaminated water at an oasis on the border.”

“Which side of the border?”

“The windward. Ylissean.”

Robin nods, thinking. If the Ylissean Army comes through Eldigan’s Pass, they’ll surely stumble upon it. _A tactical advantage,_ one part of her whispers, _but a terrible wrench in fate._

“Well, the reinforcements are ready,” she says. “The men are setting off at noon.”

“Lady Aversa said that won’t be enough.”

Robin is silent. Of course that’s not enough. Of course Aversa would call on her to do the impossible in a moment where she cannot fail.

“I’m leading a platoon down there tomorrow. We’d be happy to escort you, Grandmaster,” Mustafa offers, but Robin shakes her head.

“That’s not what she wants. If she’d wanted me on the battlefield with her, she’d have ripped me from bed the morning she left for the valley.”

Confusion glazes the General’s eyes. “What is it she wants, then?”

“She wants the Deadlords.”

+

Robin leaves Henry with Mustafa and marches back to the castle alone, her hood pulled over her eyes. Anger beats a vivid pulse in her throat. If Aversa wants the Deadlords raised, that means Robin herself will have to lead them across the desert. She tries to picture it, twelve Risen warriors shackled to her body, flagellating behind her like a troupe of haunted marionettes, but it’s too absurdly horrifying to feel like an acutal plan--let alone an order.

She could take the tablets instead. So long as she has the cant, she should be able to summon them anywhere. But that’s precious cargo she’d be damned to lose, and it could still be all in vain.

She shakes her head. There’s no use wondering about it. Aversa isn’t doing this because she needs the Deadlords in her ranks—she’s doing it because she wants to see her fail.

Suddenly, a hand grabs Robin’s arm. She shrieks as a hooded body pulls her into an alley between two apartments, behind a curtain of still-sopping laundry.

Her captor spins, lets her go. “Keep it quiet, Bubbles. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Gods, Gaius. Don’t scare me like that,” Robin says, one hand clutched over her chest. “How are you back so soon? It’s only been a fortnight.”

“I may have bribed a wyvern rancher for a ride back,” he says, proudly, throwing his hood from his head. His cheeks are burned scarlet, flaked dry from the wind.

“You’re horrible,” Robin says.

He reaches behind his back and produces a sweat-puckered envelope. Her name is signed in Chrom’s florid hand. “But efficient.”

Robin snatches the letter and tucks it into her coat’s inner pocket.

“You know, Blue’s a pretty handsome fellow,” Gaius adds. “Are you sure I’m not easing along some secret romance, here?”

“Why do people keep telling me this?” Robin grumbles. “I don’t care what he looks like. I want him dead by my blade.”

“Yikes. Got it,” he says. “So am I the official messenger of the Plegian Grandmaster, or what?”

Robin lowers her voice. “Just to Prince Chrom.”

“Damn. I’m weirdly excited. Don’t read into it, though,” he says. “What do you say I meet you back here—in three days? You give me your next letter and oh…ten currant tartlets, and we’ll call it a deal?”

Robin is incredulous. “Ten of them?”

“Yeah. For the road.”

She shakes her head—she doesn’t know how she’ll even get her hands on that many sweets. “Fine. Whatever.”

“You’re a peach, Grandmaster,” he says, then throws her a wink. “Have fun with your love letter.”

“It’s not a love letter!” she calls, but Gaius is already sprinting out of the alley, his cape an oil-black swirl behind him.

Uneager to resume searching for Validar, Robin flops against the apartment wall and pulls the envelope from her coat. The front bears no Grandmaster prefix this time—just ‘Robin,’ in pretentious royal cursive. She jabs a nail beneath the seal and slips out the letter.

_Dear Robin,_

_If our friend Gaius has ensured this letter’s safe arrival, let it confirm I am—Naga forbid you start to_ worry _about me, Grandmaster—still alive and well._

_The march leaves us little time for leisure, but I was recently speaking to a fellow soldier of mine, a wild genius of a mage (perhaps more genius than you, even), and she mentioned a word in Old South Ylissean that I thought you would like. The word is “ary’vhel,” and it means, “the feeling of magic in the body.” Tell me, what does magic feel like to you? How do you make it so strong? I know a witch like yourself is hardly inclined to share your tricks, but rest assured, a tome in my hands is mere a flint with no iron. My sisters are the lucky ones in the family, I’m afraid._

_Anyhow, I must keep this brief. My Shepherds set out early tomorrow, and I’ll need to rest if I’m in any shape to lead them. You should do the same, if you get the chance between all your ~Grandmasterly~ duties. Like you, I’d like to face a strong opponent when our duel comes to pass._

_Sincerely,_

_Chrom_

_P.S. Lissa recently purchased a wooden flute from a village we passed and has been learning the piece you sent me. It’s a strange tune: terribly melancholy, but almost hopeful. Though it pains me to admit this, I quite like it._

_P.P.S. She and I also decided to leave the Risen hand under Frederick’s pillow. His responding scream woke up a good half of our encampment, so we must give Henry our thanks._

Robin snickers against her hand. She’s never seen Frederick, or Lissa—or even Chrom for that matter—but she can imagine the forms of them so clearly, a tall prince and a spritely princess, darting between tents as a man’s hearty scream rips the dark. It’s like a memory long forgotten, a runaway glimpse of a life she could’ve had. Sadness takes her like a wind out of the east, cold and salt-brined, demanding to be felt on every inch of her.

She does not like Prince Chrom. She’ll certainly never love him, despite whatever wild stories Gaius has bouncing around in his head. But a part of her, Robin must admit, is jealous of him and his astonishingly normal life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> robin: ugh why cant I have a NORMAL LIFE liek CHROM  
> chrom: honey you got a big storm coming
> 
> ugh--can't you guys wait for these emotionally constipated idiots to spill their guts to each other? because I know I can't.
> 
> thank you for reading!!!


	6. CHAPTER SIX: The Wolf in the Snare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fresh from the desk of America's newest mfa dropout (thx COVID)...it's letters 6!
> 
> content warnings for this MONSTER of a chapter include a very very brief mention of self harm in the first paragraph of the second section and a good amount of blood
> 
> anyway, please revoke my right to use italics. night pals! if I edit this in the morning you saw nothing

CHAPTER SIX: The Wolf in the Snare

+

For five seemingly endless days, rain bludgeons the steppes at the feet of the Plegian Mountains. The earth and sky turn gray, mud flowing in streams like wet ash along the trailways. The Shepherds lose a wagon to a runaway flood, and they salvage what precious little they can, hurling potato bags and newly-forged axes onto their shoulders, before it sinks askew into a stream flushed a mile past its banks. Rations thin, stomachs rumble, eyes rove the gray for the flinty rise of a village they can hail for help. The rain pours on, and they are alone.

But today, the sun rises again, a beacon burning over the east—over home. Once-sparse grasses are full, lambent with dew and sunrise. The Shepherds will call it a blessing, but Chrom, staring perhaps a bit too deeply at the pink wedge of light on the horizon, knows it’s a promise. The war will end, one day, and they’ll all march home together. There will be peace.

“Captain?”

Chrom whirls around. Cordelia stands a measured distance from him, her hands locked at a hard angle behind her back. Sunrise clings to her like a liquid flame, seeping bright across her face. He offers a lean smile. Her eyes have always reminded him of Commander Phila’s—stern and jewellike, arresting in their redness.

“Cordelia? Is everything alright?”

“Yes, Captain.” A pause—she rocks on her toes. “Well, we had a stranger wander into camp,” she says. Chrom tenses, raises his eyebrows. “I was on watch. He meant no harm, he said, but he brought something for you.”

Chrom eases. _Just Gaius._ “I’ll take my letter, then.”

Cordelia nods; unease passes over her face. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been expecting him.” Chrom holds out his hand. “It’s about time.”

She hands over the letter. Already, he can see Robin’s writing. As he takes the envelope, his hand scores Cordelia’s, and she flinches, gasps through her teeth.

“Is something wrong?” he asks her.

Shaking her head, she wrenches her hand away. “No, Captain,” she says. “I see you uh, must have a secret admirer.”

“This? No. Just an old friend,” he says. Even after Lissa discovered his secret, the lie has gotten easier to tell, less of a barb on his tongue. “No secret admirers for me.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Captain.”

He looks at her, noticing a growing discomfort. “Forget my letter—what’s troubling you?” he asks. “I’m not used to seeing you come apart like this.”

Cordelia fiddles with the hem of her skirt. “Phila’s squad should reach us today. I’m worried they ran into that horrible storm,” she says, but she stumbles too much for him to believe her.

“Ah. Does this have something to do with my retainer?”

“No! Sir Frederick is fine. He helped me and Stahl with dinner last night, actually.”

“I know he asked to court you.”

Cordelia freezes. Red blazes across her cheeks. “He is a lovely man,” she starts, eyes downcast, “but, I…well. Unfortunately, my affections are reserved for my superior.”

Chrom scratches his head. “But Phila is…”

“Not Phila.”

As it dawns on him, his mouth cracks agape. Cordelia’s secret love is… _him?_

He isn’t sure what he feels, now that he knows what she means, who she spurned Frederick in favor of, but despite her undeniable beauty and strength, he thinks it might be fear.

“Oh,” he murmurs. “I see.”

“Yes, Captain,” she says. Her head shoots up, and the face that meets him is wounded, the light in her eyes too brittle. “ _That_ is who I meant.”

Chrom doesn’t know what to make of it. Frederick’s lovesickness and Vaike and Miriel’s—well, whatever is transpiring between them—aside, no one has time for love in war. Love is for the sunrises, for the days they know they will survive.

Understanding sweeps him. Perhaps the morning’s sun made Cordelia a promise, too.

Only he isn’t sure this one can be kept.

“I should be on my way,” she says, rushed, adding something like a bow. “Do take care.”

She leaves, and he cannot watch her, so he turns his gaze on the envelope in his hands, on his name without a title written by the woman he’s bound to kill, and wonders why the weight of it abrades him with so much guilt.

He shakes it off and heads back into camp. They’re marching again in the next hour—most the tents are already coming down, ready to be wrapped and loaded into the wagons. He catches a flash of Sully’s crimson armor as she flags down Virion and Stahl, who each carry supply crates up to their chins.

“Nice going, Squad Leader!” he calls to her.

She throws him a salute. “Gotta put these boys to work!”

Chrom returns her salute, then trails deeper into camp, where his own tent stands alone, surrounded by toppled pitch and canvas. _This is the last push,_ it reminds him. _One more day of travel, then we’ll start to make base. Then the war really begins._

The moment he’s shrouded inside, though, curiosity eclipses all other thoughts. Even the guilt, the memory of heartbreak on Cordelia’s phase. He tears open the envelope, surprised at the sight of two pages of her jagged hand, rather than one.

_Dear Chrom,_

_Once again, your curiosity baffles me. I know you have plenty books at your disposal—you’ve said so much yourself. Yet you haggle me for answers like a child haggles their favorite tutor. In most ways, I am annoyed by this, but in some, I am also flattered. Unless you’re trying to flatter me, then which I wholly retract that statement._

_Anyhow, I do like this word “ary’vhel.” We do not have a word for the sensory of magic in the old Plegian tongue, but perhaps that’s because we’ve never needed one: magic is the blood and muscle of our culture. Why express something we all understand without words?_

_But to answer your question, regarding how magic feels, the answer is in the tome._ Thoron _does not feel the same as_ Elwind. _You see, magic is not some nebulous creation born of your hands when you cast a spell—it is part of a cycle, the energy of the world pulled up through your body and refracted to a new form. When that form is thunder, you feel the electricity under your skin, the metal-static kindling your blood. When it’s wind, it’s as though the air is siphoning through the pores of your bones—you are cool and featherlight, completely aloft. Magic is, among other things, extraordinarily physical._

_It also stays with you. Heavy magic use can leave behind a fuzziness, a haze that sticks to your eyes like silt. Not to mention miserable nausea. To give you an example, I recently believed I was suffering the kickback of a powerful summoning spell, only to discover I had actually been poisoned! See, magic can trick even the best of its users. It’s best dullards like yourself stick to the sword._

_Now, please read this next bit carefully. I’m veering off topic, but I promise, it’s important._

_I sent Gaius along with one of my generals, so I do hope this reaches you in time. What I am about to tell you may be an act of treason, but please know I say it only to ensure our fated duel comes to fruition:_

_We have just lost a squadron’s worth of our men to a sickened oasis near Eldigan’s Pass. You and yours should avoid it all costs. If you think I mean to deceive you, I am happy to describe the full extent of their symptoms and subsequent death by dehydration in my next letter. You will find safer passage through any other surrounding valley—though I can’t promise I won’t be there to meet you with my blade._

_War, like all games, must be played fair._

_Sincerely,_

_Robin_

_P.S. Whenever one of your letters arrives on my desk, there is an Old Plegian word that comes to mind. It is “mann-sid-bahele,” and it means, “a man with the brain of a mule.”_

_P.P.S. I told Henry about your prank with the Risen hand. He was touched._

Chrom reads the letter twice, then a third time, just to ensure he’s not imagining things, that Robin didn’t just hand him, via their strange, sweet-toothed messenger, Plegian military secrets.

Her words could change everything. At Cordelia’s suggestion, they decided on a route through Eldigan’s Pass weeks ago. Phila’s squad is on their way to lead them there, then the whole rest of the Ylissean Army plans to follow suit. The valley’s rugged canyons were to give them ample cover as they wound their way into Plegia.

But now, Robin has given him quite the precarious gamble. Whether they veer north or south, they’re equally likely to run face-first into an onslaught of Plegian crusaders. Not to mention she could be lying—but there’s a horrible cold in his gut, more premonition than intuition, that tells him she’s given the truth. _Why, then?_ he wonders. Why offer the enemy such an advantage? Is her lust to kill him really so strong?

He composes himself. Remembers the blood on her hands, the stories that have sifted into court about the villages she’s raided, the accounts of a hooded terror with a sword forged from thunder. Of the blood-soaked magician he saw through the clamor of battle, all delicate movements and bone ivory hair, as if war were a dance to a song of screams.

It is his blade that must fell her. He has let himself drift into a lull with her, this strange almost-friendship hovering in the pages of their letters, and he has forgotten why he wrote to her in the first place.

This war will not end until Robin, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia, is dead.

+

For the first week of her platoon’s journey across the desert, Robin refuses the call of magic.

Gangrel chastises her for it, calls her a coward, a sword left to rust, but he does not force her hand, so she keeps resisting. The mana in her body screams, hungering to be set loose, to lay waste to everything she hates—her father, her King, her secret prince running headlong towards his death. She sates her craving in sharp and dangerous things, in starting needless parries with soldiers double her height, grabbing torches by the helms of their flames. Anything to feel like herself again. To remember what she was born to do.

Then she comes to Henry, who nurses her wounds with salves and bandages and the cool press of his lips to her knuckles, and she almost wishes he wouldn’t be so kind to her.

“Why are you doing this, Lady Robin?” he asks on the seventh night, when the silence in her veins has begun to ache and her Brand is knotted in places with scars. “No offense, but you’ve never really had the pain tolerance for this. Not like me, anyway.”

“I’m conserving my power. When the time comes that I must summon the Deadlords, I’ll have the strength to bring up all twelve of them. Just as Aversa wants,” she tells him.

“You’re fasting,” Tharja says from her spot across the tent. She has a tome on her lap, her black nails crooked against the spine. “But if you never break your fast, all you’re doing is starving yourself. You’re going to wither.”

“Tharja, please—”

“I will not watch you die, milady,” she says, snapping the tome closed. “Not from some foolish, self-inflicted hunger.”

“You sound like my father,” Robin says.

Tharja stiffens. There is always a shadow in her eyes, a threat of violence that simmers and thins like fog, but now, it enshrouds her whole, basking her in anger.

Or worse, _pain._ Robin shivers. Tharja’s first teacher was Validar, too. Like with Aversa, he plucked her out of a village, promising a stable future as a palace mage. Robin only met Tharja in the second year of her training—she can only imagine how many scars he’s given her, how many she hides behind her unending scowl. Perhaps it’s the thought of confronting her own that’s made Robin too afraid to ask.

“I’m sorry, Tharja,” she says, and she hopes the ache in her voice comes across. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn.”

The fog seems to lift. “I…I can’t fault you.”

_But you should,_ Robin wants to reply, then the tent flap comes unfastened, lifts, and her breath stills. Henry and Tharja both shoot to their feet.

“Hello, Grandmaster—I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Robin’s blood runs cold, her body itching for flight. Gangrel enters her tent in a swish of gold; a new cape, shimmering like the air above the desert sand. He clutches his hands together and flashes a black-gummed smile.

“Oh my. Is this a sleepover? How adorable,” he coos. “We aren’t afraid she’s going to die, are we? That’d be very unlucky for all of us.”

Robin straightens her back. “Am I needed, Your Highness?”

His eyes take on a bit too much light. “It’s time.”

“What?” Robin exclaims. Her shock feels like a freefall. “We’re hardly out of the Border Pass.”

“We’ve received word from the valley,” he says. “Inquisitor Aversa cannot wait any longer.”

Robin lets a curse past her teeth. _Damn you, Aversa. Haven’t you asked for enough?_

“Will there be a convoy to lead me?” she asks. Her voice shakes, her composure thin.

“If you remember, Grandmaster, you _are_ the convoy, this time.”

The vision strikes her again, of the Deadlords leashed to her as she drags them across the desert, the bronze and shadow of their bodies hulking like a tidal wave behind her. Fear purls in her stomach. Her bandaged hands shake. She doesn’t want to do this alone.

“My aides will join me,” she orders, forcing strength into her voice as she gestures to Tharja and Henry. Her gaze turns to steel, sharp and unrelenting. “I won’t waver on this.”

“The boy will go with you. _She_ ,” Gangrel says, pointing to Tharja, “will join the mages on the left flank.”

Tharja bows at her shoulders, though it looks more like she’s wilting. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“I want them both. I am their commander.”

“And I am their King,” says Gangrel. “You have the tablets?”

Robin, choking down a rush of anger, points to a spot near his legs. “They’re in the chest there. Beside Tharja.”

“Don’t look at me. I’m not about to fetch them for you,” he says.

With a groan, Robin peels off her cot and replaces her gloves. She takes the tablets from the chest and follows Gangrel out of the tent, Henry and Tharja at her shoulders.

She tilts her face to the sky, letting a cold wind flit across her cheeks. Beyond her secluded Grandmasters’ quarters, the camp is alive with voices and fire-thrown shadows, soldiers readying for a long march through the choke of night. _Soldiers who need their commander,_ Robin wants to say, if only to counter the latest cards her sister has dealt her.

But the magic in her veins, hot as smelted iron beneath her skin, thrums with a different desire.

Tharja’s fingers stroke her arm, and Robin turns to her. She gives a wordless nod towards a pool of hooded soldiers, all pulling tomes from a crate set on a wooden cart. “Take care, Robin,” she whispers, then slinks off before Robin can wish the same in turn.

“She’ll be okay,” Henry whispers. He squeezes her hand, then adds, “And so will you.”

She wants to believe him. But the further they drift from camp, as the desert wind closes over the soldiers’ voices and the cold wraps her fully and the jagged relief of the border pass grows darker and taller with each step, she finds it ever harder.

Gangrel leads her and Henry to the high crest of a dune, then swings an arm towards the ground beneath it. Moonlight splays over a trough of hardened sand, ringed with dark silt ripples—an oasis that was once, but no more. Dark shapes, both sharp and smooth, jab out of the earth. Robin knows what they are, though she wishes she didn’t.

“Down there,” says Gangrel. “I do hope you’re prepared, Grandmaster.”

“What was this place?”

“The site of a few sad accidents, it would seem,” says Gangrel. “Your Risen knights should find it without fail.”

Robin fixes on the soft edge of a skull, its veiny surface slick with moonlight, and thinks she’s going to be sick.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared,” Gangrel taunts. “What are a few bones? Gods know you’ve made plenty of corpses.”

_And I’ll make one of you, if you don’t screw your mouth shut,_ she wants to saw, but grits her teeth instead.

He leans in close, his lips pulled in a hideous smile. He taps a clawed finger to her jaw, feeling the way it feathers. “There it is. Her Eminent Shadow, the monster we’ve made. Can you hear him, Grandmaster? Grima? Does he beat against your body like it’s the bars of a cage? Let him unto you. Let him make you _chaos._ ”

Robin digs her heels into the sand. Wonders if she threw the tablets, they would crack against the earth, and she could set her power free on Gangrel, instead.

“Foolish girl.”

His hands wrap the lip of her hood—he shoves her to her knees, and with a gasp, she goes tumbling down the dune. The tablets dig hard into her chest, pain shocks her ribs. She hears Henry chasing after her, calling her name, but she rolls out of his reach, onto the hard grit trough. It has more give than she expected, but her body, strung out from a week without magic, aches all the same.

She stands and gathers the tablets, which remain fully intact. Henry rushes to her side, but she shoves him away. He does not deserve to be caught in the undertow of her anger.

“Impress me, Grandmaster!” Gangrel jeers. He looms over them, arms outstretched, fingers bent to the sky. “Show me that’s a title you deserve.”

“Lady Robin—are you sure you can do this?” Henry asks her.

She crouches down and lays the tablets against the earth. “I have no choice,” she says. Fury darkens her voice; it calls to the monster within her, not Grima, but the cold, mangled thing that has grown in the parts of her where love should’ve been, where it was ground out of her spell by spell, death by death.

And now, she must be Death itself. Its commander and messenger. Its prophet. _I am the Wings of Despair,_ a voice whispers deep within her, _I am the Breath of Ruin…_

...she sheds her gloves, places her hands against the frozen stone…

_…I am Robin, first of my name, Mage Grandmaster of the Theocracy of Plegia…_

…and closes her eyes…

… _Defile Vessel of the Fell Dragon, Grima!_

+

The Shepherds drift into the first of the border villages, pinned ten miles north of Eldigan’s Pass, by dusk. The townsfolk there speak in a half-familiar tongue, a pidgin of Greater Archanean and some silk sounding Plegian language. Nonetheless, they are eager to trade, offering extra provisions in exchange for protection of their lands. Some offer lodging, too, but Frederick steps in to decline, claiming the Shepherds plan to march through the evening. And so they do, with spirits lifted and stomachs full.

It’s moonrise before they reach the next. This village is altogether dark, plunged in graveyard quiet: no voices, no lights, no flutters of movement between the black hulks of houses. Completely abandoned. Sully proposes a group of them walk on through, see if there’s anything they can salvage, but their lanterns shine on nothing but darkness.

“Anyone else thoroughly creeped out?” Chrom asks. He forces a laugh, but only his echo joins him.

“Look at this,” says Stahl. He holds his lantern to a toppled beam of wood, fully black with char. “Burned to the ground.”

“I think..everything is,” Lissa mutters.

Frederick leaves his place at Lissa’s side to crouch beside Stahl. “This didn’t happen long ago,” he says, worry a harsh chord in his voice. “A year, give or take.”

“The wardin’ smoke,” Donnel pipes up. “Oh gods. It came from round here.”

“What ‘warding smoke?’” asks Chrom.

Donnel’s lantern wavers in his hands. “Last winter, the night the Risen appeared, everybody in my village saw this big plume of smoke go up in the distance,” he says. “The sky turned red right after that. We all reckoned it was just the fire spreadin’, until…well, y’all remember what happened.”

“This is so strange,” Stahl continues, moving his lantern. “You’d think after more than a year, something would grow here, but there’s nothing. No grass, no weeds.” He pinches a spot of dirt and sifts it between his fingers. It falls in thin gray flakes, shimmery in the lantern-light. “Just ash.”

Miriel approaches, her face struck with grim shadows. “Donnel, I believe this warding smoke you speak of was magic-borne,” she says.

“You think a tome did this?” Chrom asks.

Miriel nods. “Perhaps many. Regardless, it was certainly one of the upper incantations, something wholly destructive— _Arcfire,_ maybe _Bolganone._ The land is…effectively cursed.”

“So it was arson,” Stahl mumbles.

“It was Plegia,” Chrom grinds out. Then, on a breathless whisper, “ _Robin_.”

“What was that?” Stahl asks.

“Nothing,” Chrom mutters. “Miriel—can you know for sure?”

“Come daylight, I could, but I doubt anyone wants to linger here that long.”

He nods; a chill crawls his spine. “You’re right. Let’s get going. There should be clear land past here, and we can set up for the night.”

On his order, the Shepherds move ahead, and the ashes grow thicker, deeper, swishing around their feet like sand. Chrom lifts a leg to shake some from his boot, as—

—a bloodcurdling shriek tears out from the back of the procession. Chrom whips around. _Maribelle._ Between bodies, he can see a Risen lunging for her, meaty hands clasped around a sword. She tosses her lantern and bats the creature back with her staff, then spears it with a white knife of magic.

“Augh! Disgusting!”

“Are you all right?” Chrom calls to her.

“Let’s keep it at _I’m alive,_ shall we?” she says, leaning to pick up her lantern. The glass is cracked, its flame dampened by the ash.

As if summoned, low groans sprout from the earth—Risen, a whole horde of them, jerk and thrash to life, eyes furious red. They clot a rank-smelling wall around the Shepherds, weapons interlacing in a waterfall of infernal clangs. Ash drifts off them like tainted snow.

Chrom yanks Falchion from its scabbard. “Everybody, at arms!”

Backs to one another, the Shepherds bloom out like the arms of a vicious star—steel and magic sing through the air, all too loud in the village’s deathly quiet. The Shepherds make quick work of them, though, and when they’re nothing but dust and heaps of putrefied flesh, they carry on out of the village, tired and rattled but mercifully whole.

They camp for the night at the mouth of the valley, a nameless pass where the Plegian desert spills onto Ylissean land. A border that once never mattered, Chrom thinks, as he settles against his cot, listening to the wind grow with the night, blowing sand against the thin tent walls.

Nonetheless, sleep finds him quickly—he dreams of Risen and fire and a bloodred rip above the mountains, as if the sky itself were coming unsewn.

+

Ancient Loptyrian is a stiff, heavy language—Robin finds herself not so much speaking the words but stretching her mouth around them, finding awkward room for sounds not meant for her tongue. As she chants, the Brand pulses with the familiar sting of an ice burn, a pain that sieves through flesh and nerve.

A sharp burst of it bids her eyes open. The text beneath her hands glows red, like hatched wounds lit from within. Ichor weeps from the tablets, running the shape of an arcane circle—too measured, too perfect—until its hunger outgrows it, gorging on earth and bone until the oasis that was is once again, a fetid black pearl beneath the moon.

The darkness writhes. “ _Mus, Bovis, Tigris_ ,” Robin chants. Weapons stab into the sky, webbed in spit-strings of black muck. “ _Lepus, Draco, Anguilla_.” The desert melts into something else, a caesura between worlds, an airless place of rot and waiting. “ _Equus, Ovis, Simia_.” At the threshold of life and death, she fades, a ghost with a fast-beating heart, her skin little but a lucent, sinewy membrane between herself and the encompassing night. “ _Gallus, Canis, Porcus_!”

“…Robin?”

_Henry._ His voice is silver, a moon-bright flash of the living world. A lure she cannot grasp. So, again, she chants, calling the Deadlords up out of the dark, watching the desert flicker back in with every shift and throttle of their armored limbs.

Then, a flash like lightning. Robin’s words stumble. Space peels away, time torn off its rivets. The world blots out, replaced by a murky swirl of violet and stone. A _Thoron_ bolt tearing from Robin’s hands, followed by a chest-rending shock of grief. She sees white. Snow. A toy swordsman carved from dusk blue stone, parrying with Simia amid the blizzard. Two children, silhouettes, running weapons-aimed into an unfathomable swath of light.

Robin, overcome with emotions she cannot place, ties off the cant in a messy knot, the last thick syllables ground to a slur. Reality slams her, knocking her free of her visions. Red veins the sky—a harbinger.

The Deadlords stand at attention, fully formed and breathing their hard metal breaths, and the pool they rose from seeps away. Robin roves her gaze over them, her own breath a pummeling staccato in her lungs. “I did it,” she murmurs, near voiceless. But something is different: barb-like collars of shadow and violet light ring their necks.

She meets eyes with Mus. His bell-crack mouth is open. Almost _smiling._

_The Defile,_ he says. _We…obey._

The Deadlords kneel. Robin freezes altogether as ichor bleeds from their collars, their throats, skittering along the desert floor in the inimitable cross and flay of chains. They tangle together, six and six, until they coda at two jaw-shaped cuffs. Before Robin can take another breath, the cuffs latch onto her wrists, locking tight. She gasps, buckles.

“Lady Robin!” Henry cries. In an instant, his hands are on her back, pulling her straight.

“Henry, stay back.”

“Why? That was awesome!”

She holds up her shackled wrist. “Look at this. I’m a prisoner.”

“Milady, I think…I think they’re _your_ prisoners.”

_It hardly feels that way,_ she thinks, letting her coat-sleeves drop over the cuffs. Every inch of her body shakes, as if her muscles have lost all their pull. 

“Well done, Grandmaster,” Gangrel croons behind her. “We should starve you more often.”

Anger renews a sliver of her strength. _I want to kill him,_ she thinks, moving to face him, imagining the point of her blade dragging red down his neck—and Simia rushes forth, sword drawn and pointed towards Gangrel’s throat.

_Stop! Not now,_ Robin’s thoughts scream, and Simia’s leash yanks her backwards.

“My, my. What fiendish little hounds we have here,” says Gangrel. “But I see you’re already faring well with the leashes.”

“Are you happy now?” Robin asks, seething.

“I don’t think it’s my approval you need. Aversa is the one who wanted new pets,” he says. “You should get on with delivering them. She’s sure to be growing impatient, with the Ylisseans closing in.”

A new fire sparks within Robin, dispersing the last of the haze from summoning. The Ylisseans are coming. _Chrom._

“Henry. Walk ahead of me,” she orders. “Let’s go.”

Gangrel calls his goodbyes, but Robin ignores them, focused only on Henry’s steady gait ahead of her, the slow tug of her cuffs

The procession is not as she imagined it. When she dreamt of leading the Deadlords across the Border Pass, she imagined a task like herding Risen, with the undead warriors bumbling behind her. Instead, the Deadlords are perfect soldiers, training her in a ‘V’ formation, their steps a firm, rhythmic march.

_If you see the Prince of Ylisse, wielder of the Divine Falchion,_ Robin commands them, turning her gaze on the growing lash of red above the mountains, _do not kill him. Do not maim him._ She feels a ripple of confusion through the chains. Disappointment, even. But her lordlings must obey.

_He is **mine.** _

+

“Your Highness! We must go, now!”

Chrom blinks the fuzz of sleep from his eyes. His tent flap is open, Frederick silhouetted by a fierce red dawn.

“It’s already morning?” he mumbles.

“It’s not, milord.”

He shoots up. “What?”

“Come quickly.”

Grabbing his sword from beside his cot, Chrom follows Frederick outside. It’s miasma, just like on the night the Risen appeared. He wants to be dreaming. He has to be. But the red sky, the smell of death, the crypt-humid heat in the air—it is all too visceral to be a dream.

“Plegia marches with the Risen,” says Frederick. “Our auxiliary troops are coming in, but it appears we’ll have twice the battle to fight.”

Chrom glances around. Camp is nearly packed into the wagons; his Shepherds are abuzz with frantic energy, their voices grating half-whispers as they order each other about. “Is Phila’s squadron ready?”

“Yes, milord.”

Chrom nods, pensive. He looks out into the valley’s bloodred maw. It’s too quiet. Too still. Plegia is lying low, waiting for the wolf to walk into their snare.

Instead, they will cut its tethers.

“Frederick?” he asks.

Frederick raises a brow. “Your Highness?”

“Sharpen your axe.”

+

War has rules. So knows any honorable soldier. But Plegia, it would seem, is without honor. As the Shepherds enter the valley, Chrom hears them, armor and orders susurrating among the dry gray hills, but there is no General there to meet them, no declarations shouted across the battlefield before the no-man’s land is breached.

Chrom moves to the head of their party, anyway. “Generals of Plegia! Men at arms!” he calls. “If you wish to stop cowering behind your rocks and face us, now would be the time.”

For a moment, there is nothing but the ricochet of his voice, the howling valley wind that follows. Then, an onslaught _:_ Plegian soldiers clamber down the mountainsides like an avalanche, a sea of black and gold armor, weapons aloft and shields at their sides, their war-cries rising and crashing in echo. There is no rally for veneration, for country—only Ylissean blood upon their blades.

Chrom charges forward, Lissa and Frederick at his sides. A bold archer shoots for Lissa, and Frederick blocks it with his shoulder; the arrow pings off the metal, and Frederick peels off to deliver the soldier to death. Another hit comes too close, but before Lissa can retaliate—or her brother can avenge her—Sully rides past swoops her onto her horse.

“I’ve got her!” she calls back to Chrom, then spears an advancing soldier with her lance as if to prove it. 

With no one to protect but himself, Chrom pushes on, focusing only on the individual fighters as they charge him. Blood sprays up his hands, over his doublet and cape, across his face. Metal and dust gather on his tongue, making him spit.

When he reaches a lull, he takes a deep breath and peels his sweat-soaked hair from his brow. He needs to find Robin. If not her, then another general. Anyone whose death or capture could put a swift end to the war.

He runs again, plunging his blade through any Plegian soldier who crosses him. It almost scares him, the way he takes life. But guilt is for later. Now, he must survive.

A thin cry rings out at the top of a rocky hill. Chrom lands at its base just as a Plegian soldier, her armor thrown from her body as shadows wind around her, plunging fanglike into her open mouth. Suffocating her. Chrom’s blood chills. _What kind of soldier would kill their own men?_

He looks up. Sees a tight black hood, a spill of white hair—and his heart races. It has to be her. _Robin._ Of course, she would do something so cruel.

“Robin!” he calls up the hill. “I see you, Grandmaster!”

The Grandmaster doesn’t acknowledge him. An Ylissean lancer advances on her, but she casts a dark swirl of magic his way, toppling him. Pulse screaming in his ears, Chrom runs long, careless strides to the top of the hill, towards her, stopping just as she whirls to face him.

Chrom takes her in. The snowy hair, the sun-bronze skin with its intricate markings, the black leather armor that molds to her voluptuous body like oil, her hips and shoulders caged in protruding iron lattice. In one hand, she holds a tome, while bluish shadows dither around the other, curling up her fingers like living rings. She looks upon him lasciviously, peeling him apart layer by layer.

He can’t explain why, but he feels… _disappointed._

She saunters towards him—the feathers around her neck make a wet, heavy sound, and he realizes they’re covered in blood.

“Like what you see?” she teases. Her voice is rich and gravelly, so unlike the way he imagined while reading her letters. Her red eyes— _red,_ finally, he knows their color—go to the brand on his shoulder. “My, what did I do to deserve such a special audience? I’ll warn you, Your Highness…I haven’t been a very good girl.”

“You said you’d fight me with your sword, witch.”

Robin flips the pages her of her tome. “What sword, Princeling?”

“I’ve seen you,” Chrom hisses out. “We spoke of it in our letters—a fair duel, sword against sword.”

Amusement lightens her face—the wine-red markings widen, as if they, too, are smiling. “That’s right. Our letters _._ ”

“The charade is over, Robin,” he says, Falchion flung out, its point mere a few dangerous inches from her neck. “Today, we duel to your end.”

Robin laughs at him. A full-throated roar, shimmering with malice. “If there’s anything you should know about your dear _Robin_ ,” she says, shadows building around her hand, “it’s that she’s far too smart to play fair.”

With a blithe toss of her wrist, Robin pitches the tome-spell towards him. He dodges, but for a score of blue steam against his arm. Bruises flicker over his skin. He’s always been vulnerable to magic; unless he can get in close before she casts another spell, he’ll stand little chance against her.

His grip feathers on his sword; Robin’s grinning at him, arms stretched out, waiting for him to make the next move.

“Come on, Princeling. Don’t go soft on me.”

The wind rises against his back—he lets loose a shout, loud and ragged and dredged from his core, and sprints towards her. Slashes. Misses. Slashes again, blade screaming through the air. She dodges with enviable grace, a tiptoe dance that lures him down the other side of the hill.

“Where’s the fearsome warrior the legends speak of?” Robin taunts. “The killer to rival his father?”

“You won’t speak of him!” He throws himself forward. “Ever!” The blade nicks her face—blood bubbles in the cut, but she only grins harder, making the blood run fast down her cheek.

“Poor boy. You don’t know a thing.”

She freezes. Eyes wide, fear bright on her face. Chrom’s blade drives a semi-shallow cut down the center of her chest, but she cannot so much as wince in pain.

“What?” he mutters.

His glance flickers behind her. A Plegian dark mage, her hair a black curtain over her face, sprawls stomach-down on the hillside, one hand raised towards Robin. Paralyzing her.

“Run!” the mage calls. “I can’t hold this for long!”

Chrom lunges towards her—he wraps an arm beneath her shoulders, pulling “Here, let me help you,” he tells her.

She nods to down to a shaded hovel, full out of Robin’s view. “Down there. Quickly.”

He tightens his grip on her back and drags her down the hill, into a new, rocky cradle, where she steadies herself in a crouch. Her sheer clothes are torn at her stomach and thighs, revealing a rash of painful abrasions.

“Are you okay?” Chrom asks her.

“What does it matter to you?”

“Because you helped me,” he says. “Why?”

“I…should be asking you that.”

“You stopped Robin from killing me. I think that needs an explanation first.”

The mage shakes her head. “That wasn’t Robin,” the mage whispers. “That was her sister, Aversa. The King’s Inquisitor. Robin isn’t here.”

“Then where is she?” The question is maybe too frantic, too concerned, but he’s too high on adrenaline and shock to care.

“I cannot know,” she says. “But she is coming, and bringing with her a danger unlike anything we’ve ever faced.”

“So my men should retreat.”

She nods. “It would be…wise.”

“Why would you tell me this?” Chrom asks.

“Because Lady Robin’s safety is my duty,” she says, though there’s an edge of longing to it, a haze he recognized in Cordelia’s eyes only yesterday morning. “And…because you mean something to her. Clearly.”

He rides his surprise in an idle sway, a rough exhale of the breath he’d been holding. To think he _means_ something to Robin beyond a moment of amusement, beyond the few minutes it takes to read his letters. And yet, he shares the sentiment. Their promised duel is more than a game—it is a risk of their honor.

If that’s the case, she must mean something to him, too.

“Go, Prince of Ylisse,” the mage says. “Get your friends home alive.”

Then she disappears out of the hovel, back into the mire of blood and steel, as if she were nothing but a shadow in a dream.

+

Dawn does not rise ahead of Robin—she knows only of its arrival by the aching in her eyelids, the dark rings she feels forming beneath them. She must look piteous. Occasionally, Henry gives her water, or a bite of salt pork, but she is wind-burned and tired and hungry, and all she wants to do is curl up at the base of a dune and let the sand whisper over her.

Yet the shadowed chains keep her marching. Onward, towards the valley. Onward, towards Aversa. The Deadlords give her strength as offering, a tithe to the woman who will one day embody their god.

“Lady Robin? You haven’t spoken in hours,” says Henry. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“We’re almost there,” she slurs. “Almost there.”

Unable to resist the pull of sleep, she lets her eyes roll closed, lets the desert pass in starbursts of red against her eyelids.

When she opens them, Henry is gone. The desert is gone. There is only violet darkness, the same airless world from which she pulled the Deadlords.

She turns around. Her chains bind her not to them, but to her father.

“So you’ve done it, Robin,” he says. “You’ve raised the dead.”

She puffs up her chest, mimicking his bravado. “Are you proud of me yet?”

“Oh no, Robin,” he says. He wiggles his fingers, idly, and she swears she sees blood on them. “I’ll never be proud of you. In what world could I look at the self I was supposed to become and feel _pride_?”

“You don’t mean that,” Robin says, ignoring the sting. “You don’t want to be me. You want to be yourself, but with Grima’s power. You may want my blessing, Master Validar, but being me would kill you.”

“So it would,” he says. “Let me thank our god, then, that it is you who must suffer, and not I.”

“No,” she counters. “I won’t let you do this to me. I am more than just your sacrifice.”

She throws her arms in a hard, decisive cross, and the chains around her break, floating as blue-black cinders into an indiscernible sky.

“Look at me! Look at me, father _!_ ” she roars. “I’m free!”

Validar’s grin is a waning moon, a herald of darker nights ahead. The joy within her freezes, cracks. “Enjoy your freedom, Robin,” her father says. “It won’t last long.”

He snaps his fingers, and Robin falls back into the world of the living, the Deadlords’ red gazes blaring into her. She glances at her hands, if just to make sure they’re real, only to find her cuffs have disappeared. Her gaze snaps up.

Her chains to the Deadlords are broken.

“No,” she mutters. She cannot feel their thoughts, their emotions. With their weaponless hands, they fumble at the armor about their necks, relishing in their missing collars. Tears march down Robin’s cheeks, scalding the blush and raw of her skin.

How could she let him outwit her _again_?

As if at once realizing their freedom, the Deadlords break off into the dawn—running east, south, north, west. The only one that remains is Mus, his helmet set in that horrible, knowing smile.

“Lady Ro—”

Robin trudges forward, Levin sword drawn. “Stay _back,_ Henry.”

Mus seems to welcome her. His weapon doesn’t move. His red eyes blink out, accepting.

“You were promised to me,” Robin says to him. “You are the sacrifice.”

She charges on him, casting a tomeless spell--weak, foamy darkness, still enough to rip Mus's armor from his body. Then she plunges her blade into his chest, again and again, until she’s certain no one else can ever wake him.

+

Plegia retreats first, leaving only a platoon of hobbling Risen to defend their land. It is a move so surprising, Chrom at first thinks it’s a ruse—but then the valley is theirs, and victory begets a celebration.

To Chrom, it all feels like a strange blessing. Not long after the battle ends, word comes from Ylisstol: Emmeryn, requesting the return of her betrothed and siblings. Her message is short and diplomatic, but by the quiver of her hand, Chrom knows she’s far from all right. Chrom relinquishes temporary command to Virion, and with a handful of Shepherds as their retinue, he and his family turn for home.

As they pass through the burned village again, a shadow on the earth in the daylight, he pauses a moment, staring not at the mountains, but through them, knowing full well what lies beyond. It feels like another promise—a darker one than the sunrise gave him—one of a challenge greater than his years.

It feels, he thinks, like someone is staring back.

+

Three days after Robin’s return to the capital--a brief return, as she understands it, only to answer to her failure--Gaius appears in the courtyard. He catches her after training, when she’s sprawled on the pavers with her coat bunched beneath her head, letting the sun kiss her skin and a gale off the east cool her sweat.

“Hey, Bubbles,” he says, leaning over her.

She cracks one eye open. “You’re blocking my sun.”

“I got a letter for you,” he says. He drops it onto her stomach, and she sits up, checking frantically for Chrom’s same pretentious hand. “That’s the last one, by the way.”

Something cold ravels in her stomach. “What?”

“Blue’s fine,” he says. “I mean I can’t be your messenger anymore. Got a big job, going to take a long time. Going to take me far from here.”

“Well, do you want any sweets?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Nah. This one’s on the house,” he says. He looks haunted, his skin too pale and his eyes too dark, but Robin won’t tell him as much. “You take care of yourself, Bubbles.”

“You too, Gaius,” she says, solemnly, and she waits for him to disappear over the ledge before opening the letter.

_Dear Robin,_

_I do not believe your want of a fight is the only reason you chose to save my men from poisoning, but I will not ask you why. I am not owed it, and for the time being, my curiosity is fully sated. I want little more from you but your heart around my blade._

_When I close my eyes at night, I see a valley brimming with blood. A trail paved in bones. The horrors our armies have wrought for each other. What are they, I wonder, but the price of each other’s freedom?_

_But your men want more than that. I can see it. Gods, they fight alongside their own dead! I must say, the Plegian sword is swung with a cruelty unlike anything I’ve ever known. Well. That’s not entirely true. But that isn’t a story you deserve to hear._

_Let me ask—were you in that valley, Robin? Were you too afraid to face me? Or did the tides of war simply not bring us together? Whatever the answer, know I will not relent when we do come to blows. Your life, Mage Grandmaster, is what must be paid for peace._

_Sincerely,_

_Chrom_

Robin’s lip quivers against her will. Who was she to think his latest letter would be a reprieve? She wants to crumple up his letter and bury it in the sand, but she won’t. A part of her knows she’ll be collecting them until one of them falls to the other’s hand. They’re history, she reasons, these strange, almost cordial communiques between enemies. Somewhere in the future, she’s doing some poor, passionate archivist a favor.

Another shadow moves into her view: Aversa, back from the valley. A wide pink scar twists from her collar to her navel, and Robin can barely hide her shock at the sight of it.

“Hello, little bird,” says Aversa, her hands taut behind her back. A smile moves her lips--a tight, cunning curve. “It appears you and I have much to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo!!! that's the end of this first arc (and check out that updated chapter count whoooooo). thanks for reading!!!!
> 
> EDIT: great naga alive WHAT was that typo at the end. I've also added some other embellishments if you're re-reading this.
> 
> beta your fics, kids. don't be like me.


	7. INTERLUDE ONE: Her Body Is a Pyre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FTR, this is chapter is an interlude featuring the future kids (just Luci and Morgan), and while there are letters from Chrom and Robin involved, and some intrigue about how the doomed timeline shakes out in this world, it's completely skippable if you're not interested in that part of the story. I joke that this fic is my "awakening remake", and *spoilers* we're going to Ferox this arc, so I really wanted Miss "Marth" to make an appearance.
> 
> That said, if you don't want to read this one, the true chapter 7 will be out on August 3rd-ish

INTERLUDE ONE: Her Body Is a Pyre

+

It is a strange thing to watch the world end, to watch time blacken and splinter like a match at the end of its burn. The Exalt Lucina fears it more so in the pauses between battles, when there is no sword swung or magic ablaze, no chaos to distract her from the void seeping into the corners of her vision, a great undoing that comes in subtle tears, one seam ripped out at a time.

Twenty-six days have passed since the royal suites were destroyed. Each morning, Lucina sneaks out of the Shepherds’ barracks, their last stronghold, and stares into the pinhole opening of the place she once called home, watching flakes of ash drift in and out of the shadows and wondering, if she made herself small enough, hugged her elbows to her ribs like a bird afraid of flight, she could wriggle her way inside to say a proper farewell.

But then she doesn’t. She leaves. Always, she leaves, and always, her Shepherds are disappointed. Dissatisfied. Her brother urges her in nudges against her arm, Gerome in firm suggestions, Severa in almost-shouts and fists curled into the front of her tunic, _you have to go in there. Take back what is yours._

Yet none of this is hers. It’s not any of theirs. The blistered sky, the ash and flint of the earth—the world that bore them is now a future unwritten, a blighted branch that must be sawed lest the whole tree sicken and rot.

Naga’s blessing shimmers in her eye, a needlepoint of heat, a reminder of what’s to come. This world will soon collapse, without her in it, and she must reap what she can before it does.

She must go back to her room.

Lucina crouches, knees to the broken stone, and pulls her father’s sword from the scabbard on her hip. Its steel, forged from Naga’s own tooth, casts off the red of the sky, gleaming unfettered silver as she nudges it through the ruins’ tiny entryway.

Her fingers twitch, suddenly unsure around Falchion’s pommel. She counts to three, a childish impulse clawing out of memory, then drops the sword. Blade and cross-guard clatter against the stone, but no Risen come writhing claim it.

“Come on, Lucina,” she whispers. She stretches out on her belly, now, rubble sticking at her ribs, and pushes Falchion out of reach. Makes a space for herself. “You can do this.”

With a slow, firming breath, Lucina twists forward. The upheaved marble scrapes her elbows and hips through her tunic, like tiny stalagmites leaving pea-sized bruises on her skin.

Once inside, she recovers Falchion and unfolds to her knees, then crawls to the shredded remains of the hallway rug, where the ceiling arcs high above her and red light cleaves the dark in sidelong rays. Deep cracks web the floor, and she follows their path, lightning-thin wounds in the marble, to rubble heaps and catapulted stones, to lifeless armor basked in dust. It looks as though the palace had ruptured itself from beneath, spraying far into the sky before tumbling down again.

Blood-mottled carpet is wound up in her hand before she realizes it. This was home. The hallway where Morgan took his first steps. The windows she used to nap beneath. But now, home is devastation, and her memories do not fit inside these ravaged walls.

Tamping down her sorrow, Lucina rises, Falchion held firm at her side. What remains of her room lies past the crux of two half-toppled columns, like some unsteady gate to a foreign world. She splays a hand against her old door, over notches new and old, then cracks it open.

A quiet _oh_ escapes her lips. Her bedroom is, for the most part, intact—though it’s not as blue as it used to be. A wound in the ceiling gives way to red and dust, leaving a tissue-pink film over the floor. The curtains are shorn, the windows splintered to toothlike shards. The canopy she once begged for lies toppled on the bed, drapes looped haphazard about the wood. She could almost save it, a stray thought nags, but there is little point in saving what will only fall to ruin again.

She walks forward, to the vanity nestled in an alcove near the hearth. The mirror shows her in glassy pieces, a bright aperture around a hard punch of black. She gives her battered, dusty frame a moment’s glance, then turns her attention on the vanity drawers. There are three of them, opened at different breadths. As she searches them, finding nothing of value—all her jewels and knickknacks stolen, shoved into enemy pockets—worry pushes cold behind her ribs.

With a frantic jerk, she opens the third drawer, and there against the bare, plundered velvet, is exactly what she came for.

The music box was a gift from her father. For which birthday, she can’t remember, but she remembers him showing her how to crank the key— _to the right, Luci; all the way around—_ and the song it played, a dreamy, gossamer lullaby danced by a wooden ballerina.

She finds the key on the back and turns it five cranks. The lid pops open, and the dancer pirouettes, and the lullaby sounds as pure and pristine as the day she first heard it, a ghost waltzing through the room.

But Lucina isn’t here for the music. Two envelopes, yellow with age, sit folded around the dancer’s podium.

“There you are,” she mumbles, plucking one envelope and opening the flap. The parchment inside, once a durable stock, is stained thin from a child’s oily hands, pruned in spots by long-dried tears. She shifts to prop the letter on her knees and folds it open, smoothing the river-shaped creases that appear the margins, reminders of where she clutched them too tightly.

_My Dear Daughter,_

_For the first time in weeks, the sun’s rays shone through the pitch and smoke of the battlefield, and I was instantly reminded of you and the ~~inmeasurable~~ immeasurable light you have brought my life. Though it pains me that I cannot see you every day, cannot hold you in my arms and teach you the sword the way I used to, it is my happy memories of you that keep me fighting. _

_Really, please forgive your old father for being such a sap. You and Morgan are the greatest loves I’ve ever known, beyond your mother. Who is currently peeking over my shoulder and correcting my spelling, if you’re curious about all the strikethroughs and inkblots._

_War is hell, my darling. I pray you will never see its horrors for yourself. But if you must, if your mother and I cannot lead us home as we promised, I know you will be ready. You have my strength, and your mother’s wit—but most importantly, you have your own beautiful heart, warm with a bravery far stronger than any we’ve ever known. Go forward, Lucina, and the world will fall in step._

_But let us not think about that. We will come home, and our family will be as one again. That is my promise to you._

_With all my love,_

_Father_

_P.S. I don’t think I have to tell you this, but look out for Morgan. And Owain, too, while you’re at it. Your aunt will be happy to hear you’re all getting along._

The lullaby fades, and Lucina curls in on herself, the letter pressed to her heart. _Go forward_ , her father told her, and here she is, mere days from turning everything back.

Would he be proud of her, still? Or would he see the little girl beneath the toy-soldier veneer, the scared older sister afraid of her own heart, and know his sword was always too heavy for her hands?

She will see him again. The past draws her in on the promise of his embrace, of his rumbling laughter when Morgan cracks a joke or her mother falls asleep with her face in a tome. They feel like cruel illusions, now, but they will be real again. Maybe not hers, not entirely, but real enough.

She traces the black ink whorls that form the word ‘Father,’ a gesture of veneration, then trades his letter for her mother’s. The seal still clings to this one—Lucina jabs it open with a chewed-off nail and eases the parchment into her hands.

_My Little Light,_

_I dreamt last night of your days as a newborn, when you would only sleep if you were curled against my breast, your father’s arm slung around the both of us, and I woke weeping at the thought of how long it’d be before I returned to you and your brother._

_Your father insists we’ll be home by summer’s end, but in all fairness, I cannot be so certain. The war has reached a bloody tedium—fighting is the norm in Plegia, and it is hard to break a people from their status quo._

_I’ve been too shy to tell you this, knowing how silly it is, but some nights, when it’s my turn for watch, I like to find a quiet space at the edge of camp and sing to you. Do you remember the lullaby about the butterfly and the willow tree? Morgan never liked it as a baby, but you did—it was the only thing besides my arms that could get you to sleep most nights. So now, I sing it to you, and hope the wind carries it far enough for you to hear._

_I must sound so overbearing. Forgive me for that. I just don’t want a day to pass where you don’t know how much I miss you and Morgan. Gods-willing, we’ll all be together again soon._

_Love, now and always,_

_Mother_

_P.S. I know you’ve been asking for ages, so when we get home, I want to tell you about the life I lived before I met your father—you deserve to know how much you have saved me. This war, I believe, is my chance to return the favor._

_P.P.S. Give Morgan lots of hugs and kisses for me. I’ll be asking him to do the same for you._

Lucina refolds the letter. Grief is a knife, and it twists, her heart wrenching around it, giving it all her empty spaces, and for the first time in months— _years—_ she allows herself to weep, her thin, acrid cries tangling high in the riven blue curtains.

A rush of noise stills her—footsteps, nearing in crackling percussion. She schools her breath to a stutter and looks over her shoulder, towards the door. Her brother fills the threshold; he looks forlorn and all too pale, long skeins of dust striped down the front of his tactician’s coat.

“Morgan? How did you get here?”

“I followed you from the barracks. I was worried,” he says, which fills her with a lead-cold rush of guilt.

He comes to crouch beside her, kicking aside a layer of broken glass and dust before leaning himself against her shoulder. “Are those from Mother and Father?”

She nods. “The last ones that ever came,” she says. “Do you still have yours?”

Morgan shakes his head. “I couldn’t get to them. There’s a pretty big rock where my doorway used to be.”

Lucina glimpses between the letters in her hands and Morgan’s too-soft expression, then, with a quiver in her fingers, gives her brother one of the envelopes.

“Here,” she says. “This was from mother.”

He opens it almost fearfully, ghosting gloved fingers over their mother’s writing. She gives him a moment with it, eyes averted.

Paper rustles. “Are you sure?”

Lucina nods. “I want you to have it. Mother would, too.”

He tips his chin up, makes himself sturdy, rooted in the cracks of the shattered floor. “Please, Luci. Let me come with you.”

Lucina shakes her head. It’s not his job to be the strong one. “Morgan, I can’t—”

“Why not?” he shoots back. “Gerome’s going. Inigo’s going. Severa said she would, too, if Naga would open the way for her.”

Lucina curses the way her heart jolts. “When did you talk to Severa?”

“The other day,” he says. “She said she figured out a way to braid your hair, if you didn’t want to cut it.”

She shudders, thinking of Severa’s hands, her cold fingertips, the way her face will wrinkle when she parts Lucina’s hair and sees the red-violet brand on her skin.

“You know, you could always just cover your eye,” Morgan suggests.

“It’s not that simple,” she says.

“Why not?”

Her lips press out a hard line. There are so many truths she can’t bear to tell him. _Because Lucina the Princess couldn’t rescue our parents. Because Lucina the Exalt couldn’t stop the war. Because Lucina the Shepherd can’t save the world—but maybe Marth the Hero-King can._

Morgan’s mouth wrinkles; he looks so much like their mother when he’s thinking. “Oh, I get it,” he says. “You don’t think mother and father will believe you.”

Lucina feels the breath leave her lungs. Bless his innocence—or maybe not his innocence. None of them are innocent anymore. Maybe it’s the way his mind works around the worst-case scenario, every solution built on a scaffold of hope, that brings him to an answer that doesn’t fault her.

“That’s…part of it,” she concedes. “It could be pretty unbelievable.”

“Yeah,” Morgan says. “What if you get there, and you aren’t even born yet? What if our parents don’t even know each other?”

“I’ve always wondered how they met.”

“Hey—maybe Gerome can make me a mask, too. We can be Marth and…Marc!” he exclaims, jabbing a finger towards the sky. “That’s it. Marth and Marc: the greatest warrior-tactician sibling duo that ever lived.”

“You know, The Hero King’s tactician had a different name.”

“Well, I’m not the Hero King’s tactician. I’m the Exalt Lucina’s,” he says with a smile full of teeth, like this is all just a childhood game, and they aren’t sitting in the ruins of the place where their parents used to read them to sleep. “Which is way cooler, if you ask me.”

Fighting tears, Lucina cups his cheeks—still too round and youthful for a boy who’s seen the world end—and his smile falls.

“Lucina? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I have to go, Morgan,” she says, leaving a kiss on his forehead. “Your time will come. And when it does, I promise, I’ll find you again.”

His hands find the crooks of her elbows, and he holds them tight. “You’d better.”

She tucks him into her arms, sheltering him, and his voice rattles quiet at her neck, singing the first timid notes of a lullaby.

_“There was a butterfly, on wings of light, and a willow tree…”_

Lucina gasps. “You remember.”

_“…they lived on zephyrs strange, a wild age, of destiny…”_

Tears run hot down her cheeks. “Morgan…”

He carries on, and she gathers him closer, stroking his hair, her own voice sewn up with sorrow, and in the growing immolation of the world, it is the last time anyone sings.

+

Like a tremor of sudden thunder, Naga calls upon Lucina at midnight. _It’s time, Exalt,_ she beckons in a voice so lucid it’s liquid, pounding blood-thick in Lucina’s ears. _The past has opened its arms._

Were she sleeping, it would have woken her, but sleep is hard to reach these days—more a veil she drifts in and out of than any real state of rest. She affixes her mask, belts Falchion to her hip, and climbs down the bunk ladder, each rung fit into the soft arch of her boot, then settles silent on the barracks floor.

She pauses. Morgan is a formless lump beneath his sheets, one gloveless hand stuck free and making a fist in his pillowcase. Her shadow, gray in the meager candlelight, falls halfway over the brand on his skin—selfsame as the one on her neck, six bow-set eyes recalling their mother’s Plegian blood.

_You are children of two skies,_ she told them, once, as they pored over a map pricked thousand-fold with tacks. _See these mountains that cleave our land? You have a home on either side of them. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you don’t belong._

Tamping down the memory, Lucina bids her brother a silent goodbye and walks out of the barracks.

Via the guard tunnels, she can still reach the castle’s inner sanctum. Cynthia and Kjelle are on watch tonight, and while Cynthia calls after Lucina, her older sister is silent. Understanding. This is not Lucina passing them by—this is Marth, the Hero King, who thinks only of saving the world, and not of the brother she’ll miss, or the parents she mourns, or the red-haired girl whose touch persists like a fever on her skin.

She pulls herself straight, fixes her grief-addled body into the posture of a hero, and there in the dark, drawn along by nothing more than intuition and Naga’s voice, she starts to believe it.

The Divine Dragon leads her to the sanctum archives—the lowest level of the royal library, and the former resting place of the Fire Emblem. On either side of her, shelves rise like giants, boasting bellyfuls of dust-skinned tomes.

One gives her pause. A plum leather jacket embossed with her Plegian mark, eyes staring back in gold. She runs a hand over the cover, along the furrowed spine. Magic didn’t find her the way it did Morgan—she felt it only in wordless whispers, sparks in her hands that never grew to fire—but in touching this book, something like magic floods her, a ripe, chemical cold that makes her wince.

No, no. No magic. She’ll stick to the sword.

She treads deeper into the library, where a museum case stands empty, its lock buckled and bent. For centuries, this was the home of the Emblem, her family’s most sacred relic.

It still unnerves her, the way something so eternal could be so quickly ripped away.

_This is the fate you must change,_ Naga tells her, a tide inside her head. _But my dear Exalt—that sword was made to sunder destiny._

Lucina steps forward. Lamplight makes a mirror of the glass; with nothing but a black wall behind it, she faces only her reflection, a thin specter on a thinner plane. Watching herself, she runs a finger along her mask’s gilt trim, pricks roughened skin on the blade-sharp wings that cradle her cheeks. Smears a ruby sheen of blood across the glass, as if to say, _I was here._

Another ghost moves in behind her: her brother is a shadow in his dark cloak, his arms wound around that old Plegian tome.

“Morgan,” she whispers. No questions. No accusations. Only his name, and he’ll glean what he wants from it.

“The braid looks good,” he tells her.

She palms the short tuck of hair at the base of her neck. “Oh,” she says, half relieved, “Well, thank Severa for that.”

“I’m coming with you, Luci,” he says. “I can’t lose you, too.”

Lucina does not move. Does not speak. Only watches him step towards her until their shoulders are pressed together, until his face falls where her blood takes the curve of her fingerprint and she sees their mother’s eyes staring back, their father’s stern brow pulling a shadow between them, and knows that his body is a pyre as much as hers, burning off a legacy they must unwind before they can save.

“Okay.”

+

The past is a sun between open doors, its rays like bright arrows shot into the dark. Lucina and Morgan stand before it with hands clasped, looking for shapes in the white, any phantom glimpse of where they’re going.

“Should we count to three?” Morgan asks.

“I think we just run,” Lucina replies, feigning a confidence that sounds much better coming from the hull of her chest.

Morgan squeezes her hand. “Hey. The voice really sells it.”

Were they not staring down a portal to another time, she might laugh. “I love you, Morgan,” she says instead.

“I love you too, _Marth._ ”

She gives him a nod, all she can offer in place of a smile, and together, they run weapons-first into the unknowable past.

The portal breaks around them—membranous, yielding—as Naga’s power envelops them in warmth, molding to their skin like liquid sun. From the unending white, a new reality spasms to life, a ghostly landscape of almost-trees and shimmers that could be water, if Lucina could be worried to squint. The shifting ground (or not-ground) beneath her feet begets more concern. With each new stride, space rends around them, tensing and relaxing in rootlike strands.

Morgan lags at her side, raveled in curiosity. Lucina has to yank him forward. “Come on!”

Then an eye, a void, slats open ahead of them, iodine dark and weeping. Its tears burst like inkblots against the ground, and the void grows, delineates, jags a deep chasm striking dead between them.

“Luci!” Morgan calls, winded. “What do we do?”

“Keep running! That’s got to be the way out.”

_Naga, guide me,_ she prays,

The chasm splits like an aching jaw, sutured in thinning tendons, and Morgan drifts from her, loses ground.

Fear stabs through Lucina’s gut. She throws out her arm. “Morgan! Hold onto me!”

He reaches, face blanched in terror, but his hand falls shy of her arm, grasping at air. The chasm tears again, the pale sinew between them too thin to cross.

“Just go! I’ll find you!” Morgan cries.

“I won’t leave you!”

The void-eye is growing, spreading impossible wings. Morgan sobs out Lucina’s name, full and true—

—but it’s too late. Darkness is everywhere, and her brother, like the light, is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Comments and kudos are loved and appreciated <3


	8. CHAPTER SEVEN: A Deeper Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends! this isn't dead! these have been some of the hardest months of my life (if you follow my twitter, you probably have at least a slim idea of the chaos) but we're back! fingers crossed we'll have a full 12 chapters by year's end, but who knows. in the meantime, this chapter is light and frothy compared to everything else you've read, and damn if we don't all need it. love you all!! your comments and kudos give me life.

CHAPTER SEVEN: A Deeper Breath

+

_To His Royal Highness, Prince Chrom of Ylisse:_

_I am resuming to call you by your full title, seeing as two months have passed since our last correspondence, and the war between our countries pins us increasingly further apart (figuratively, that is—I write to you today as I travel back to the border). Not mention our dear friend Gaius has released himself from his post as our messenger. Counting that, I have no idea how this letter will reach you, and can therefore only deduce it is a work of Grima himself if it lands on your desk._

_Say, Your Highness, I hope you don’t mind me using the name of my god in our letters again. If you wish to do the same, you should know that ‘Naga,’ fills me not with ire or ill, but a curious indifference. Thus, you cannot use it to rile me—as I know you would try._

_Really, I don’t know why I’m writing to you again. Perhaps a habit? An itch I can’t help but scratch? As I direct my troops against yours, you remain something of a nuisance in my mind. Tharja, a palace mage and friend of mine, somehow figured out I’d been writing to you, and suggested these letters of ours might be a “hobby.” I could consider that further, but I’m afraid I’m too busy. On that note, she also seemed rather jealous, but her devotion to me has always been a double-edged sword._

_Regardless, if you happen to have died in battle by the time this letter reaches Ylisse, I will be very disappointed in you._

_Do write soon._

_In Grima’s Glorious Dark,_

_Robin, Mage Grandmaster of Plegia_

_P.S. There are rumors floating around of Lady Emmeryn’s upcoming wedding. I’d rather you not give her my congratulations expressly, considering the covert nature of our letters, but do know they are felt._

_P.P.S. Do you have any pretty lords and ladies chasing after_ you _? I’ve heard the court of Ylisse is well-known for its romantic drama, and I could always use more reasons to make fun of you._

“Robin, you madwoman,” Chrom mutters to himself, neglecting the formal coat on his bed in favor of reading her letter again, studying every jag and blot of the ink, making sure it’s really the Mage Grandmaster who’s written him. After the incident with her sister in the valley, he can only be so confident.

But it’s her. It must be. Though it’s never reached his ears, her voice rings clear in her words, how she whets the kind starts of phrases into vicious blades—how she never ceases to surprise him, word after word.

He taps a finger to his chin. This Tharja girl must be the mage who stalled Aversa to save him. Robin calls her a friend, but Chrom snags on the word _devotion._ It’s a robust, full-bellied word, heavy on the page. _Is Tharja…more than Robin’s friend?_ he wonders, and the thought tugs a peculiar tightness through his chest.

Before he can even consider it, the door handle jiggles across the room. “Chrom?” Lissa calls through the door.

“Hold on--!” he shouts to her.

Lissa throws open the door, anyway, driving the handle into the wall with a thud _._ “What are you doing?” she exclaims. For a moment, he almost doesn’t recognize her. Her hair is wrangled into an elegant bun, a fall of gold-set pearls strung in lieu of the usual lace beneath her circlet crown. Soft layered skirts drift from her bodice to below her feet, fading white into yellow like the petals of an iris.

“You look lovely, Lissa,” he says with a smile.

“And you look like you just got out of the bath,” she says. Hiking her skirts to her ankles, she stomps over to Chrom’s bed and flings his coat at him. He catches it against his chest, sending Robin’s letter to the floor. “Did you forget our sister is getting married today?”

Chrom steps in front of the letter as he swings his coat onto his shoulders. “Of course not.” He pokes one arm through its sleeve. “I’ve just been busy.”

“Uh-huh. Right,” she says. “Emm wants us in her room, by the way. Now.”

“How come?”

“Because ‘getting married to her girlfriend of ten years in the middle of a war’ is kind of a big deal, doofus?” she snaps. “She probably wants to pray with us.”

Chrom fiddles with his buttons. “Right. Well, you head on, then. I’ll be right behind you.”

Lissa sizes him up, her arms crossed so that her sleeves puff up to her chin. Then, like a stone flung from a slingshot, she darts to the floor and scoops up Robin’s unfurled letter. “Ooh, what’s this?”

“Lissa, don’t—”

Chrom strains for the letter, but Lissa twirls out of reach. “‘To His Royal Highness, Prince Chrom of Ylisse,” she starts. Red runs up her brother’s neck. “I am resuming to call you by your full title, seeing as two months have passed since our last’— _wait_. Is this who I think it is?”

She dangles Robin’s letter like bait, loose between her fingernails, and with a hard swipe, Chrom snatches it up. “What it is,” he tells her, holding the letter high above her head, “is none of your business.”

“Oh really?” Lissa teases. “What could you two be writing about that’s ‘none of my business?’ Hm?”

“Certain japes between rivals are not for young ladies’ eyes.”

“But Robin’s a lady, right?”

Chrom scoffs. “I’ve never thought of her as one.”

“Maybe that’s why she wants to gut you, or whatever,” she says. “Now, would you get dressed already?”

He throws up his arms. “I am dressed!”

Lissa raises an eyebrow in a way that’s far too Frederick for his liking. “You have to wear both sleeves today, _Chrom_.”

She skips off towards the door, laughter fizzing in her wake, and Chrom directs himself to the mirror to fix his coat. The rich blue fabric is pressed as stiff as heavy-stock parchment, each silver button polished to a mirror’s shine. He can only hope the finery will distract their guests from the rest of him. Shadows haunt his eyes, the scars of long nights in the war room, and with little time to maintain his hair, he’s developed a cowlick that won’t smooth down.

“ _Helloooo!_ Chrom? Are you coming?” Lissa calls for him.

He rolls his eyes. He never thought he’d meet anyone less patient than himself, until Lissa came of age. “In a minute!”

With one last turn to the mirror, he slings a white cape over his shoulders, pinning it to the heavy epaulettes on his coat, though he might as well be wearing two iron pauldrons, for the way they press on his shoulders, stiff as frozen hands. He shakes it off, rolling his arms a few times before following the frothy train of Lissa’s gown into the hallway.

Past a handful of turns and a short flight of stairs, Emmeryn’s chamber doors are propped fully open, a few servants bustling about in the entryway. They bow to Chrom and Lissa before scattering, leaving the path to the Exalt unhindered.

As the doors, the windows are open to the mounting autumn breeze. The evening sun fans a warm glow through the room, oiling the marble floors in champagne gold. Canvas changing screens have been flung up around the sitting area; Emmeryn stands behind them, a red-tinged silhouette of poise and heavy silk skirts.

“Emm? Can we come around?” Chrom asks her. 

“Please, I…I need your help.”

They walk to the other side of the screens, Lissa tittering with excitement despite the clear worry in Emmeryn’s voice. When Chrom sees her, though, he understands.

Their sister has never been anything other than a portrait of grace, but tonight, in a rose-gold gown vined in diamond and gilt, she is ethereal, resplendent, more lustrous than any crown jewel. She steps towards them, and the whole of her glimmers like a prism, from the crystals on her veil, small and bright as tears, to the shiny filament threaded into the hem of her skirts.

“Oh, Emm—you look perfect,” Lissa coos.

“I can’t say it any better,” adds Chrom. A smile stretches his lips, pride a warm flicker beneath his ribs.

“You’re too kind,” she says, giving a bashful swivel of her body. Her skirts swirl, and the light refracts in bursts and blades.

“What did you need?” Chrom asks her.

“Ah, could you help me with my veil?” she asks. “It’s supposed to fit over my crown, but…well.” She holds out her hands. Her fingers are quivering, and there are damp shadows on the palms of her gloves. “I know, it’s silly of me to be so nervous.”

“Not at all,” he says. He gathers her veil in his hands, careful not to muss the delicate tulle, and tucks it over her head, letting the fabric fall through the swoop of her crown.

“There,” he says, his smile widening—though it’s nothing compared to the one that meets him. Emmeryn looks like his gauziest memories of their mother, her expression at once giddy and serene, shored by an ample blush and waves of flaxen hair. His throat tightens. “Phila should have no problem.”

Emmeryn’s blush deepens, her gaze flicking briefly to her feet. “I suppose we should have practiced.”

“No way,” Lissa pipes up. “She deserves all the surprise of seeing you like this. Her jaw’s gonna crash through the floor.”

Emmeryn giggles, and Chrom leans forward and kisses her forehead, right where the Brand of Naga sears her skin. “Lissa’s right,” he says. “I’m so proud of you, Emm.”

“Oh, come here. Both of you.” She opens her arms, her sleeves spilling down like diaphanous wings, and welcomes Chrom and Lissa into her embrace.

“I wish mother could have been here,” Emmeryn whispers. “She’d have been so happy.”

“What about father?” Lissa asks.

Emmeryn leans into Chrom, shielding Lissa from the tension that ices her body, the pain she prays her baby sister will never know. He takes what he can, tightening his arm around her shoulders, but they both know he has his own weight to bear.

“Were this a kinder world,” Emm starts, each word cut with an ache, “I suppose he would have been happy, too.”

This seems to satisfy Lissa; she hugs them both, straining on her tiptoes to reach their height. But Chrom is still grappling with her words. Would a kinder world really have meant a kinder father? Or was it best off without him at all?

Emmeryn sensing the tension spreading over his face, kisses his temple. “Say a blessing with me?”

Chrom nods, eager for the diversion. His voice joins his sisters’ in quiet unison, the prayer spoken more to the floor than to Naga above. _“Divine Naga, whose fire runneth in my veins, hallow these hours with your blessing and give unto us the good fortune of your land and sky.”_

As they close the prayer, they linger in gilded silence, riveted in the weight of the moment, until Emmeryn breaks their embrace and stammers, “Wait—Chrom?”

He tilts his head. “Yes?”

“I do need you to fix my veil, again. If you don’t mind.”

Laughter rumbles in his chest, and it feels like an awakening, a promise of better days. “I don’t mind at all.”

+

On the invitations, the theme of the latest Ylissean royal wedding was “a harvest of joy”, whatever that meant, but from the first jubilant moments of the ceremony, Chrom knows the real common bond of the night is a middle finger in the face of tradition.

There is no rote procession of bridesmaids and escorts: their friends have already taken their seats in the front row, waists turned and necks craned for a glimpse of the brides. No, it is Phila, at Emmeryn’s behest, who walks first down the aisle, both parents latched to her arms. She wears golden armor, extravagantly fluted and boned, over a sage variation of a formal doublet. The cravat at her neck is cinched with a pin shaped like the Brand of Naga, a bright jewel gleaming at its teardrop core, and her hair is down, the severe bun traded for powder-blue waves that taper at her shoulders. Like Emmeryn, she wears a veil, only hers is shorter, less shimmery, the lucent fabric bouncing just along her chin. She looks beautiful, and strong, and every bit deserving of his incredible sister.

But Phila has been family for years. She could be wearing a mutton sack, for all Chrom cares, and he’d still welcome her, so long as she made Emmeryn happy. 

Once Phila has taken her place at the altar, the organ changes key, and in the absence of their parents, Chrom loops his arm through Emmeryn’s. He walks her proudly down the aisle, keeping at a tender pace so as to show her off to the audience, to let them see the joy that gleams beneath the scrim of her veil.

“Do you think they’ll be happy, Chrom?” Emmeryn whispers to him. “The people?”

“Of course, they will. You’re both heroes. Nothing should make them happier than your union,” he says. “And if they don’t, they’re horribly lucky you’re as kind as you are. The same can’t be said for your brother.”

Emmeryn giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. “I appreciate your confidence in me.”

“You deserve this, Emm. You deserve peace.”

With that, he hands her off to her bride and squeezes in beside Lissa in the front row. The processional tapers into silence, and the Priestess at the head of the altar clears her throat, a ragged sound that makes a brash echo through the throne room, cutting off the last of the chatter.

“Most distinguished guests, from near and away, far and wide—we are gathered here today to witness, under the eye of our Blessed Naga, the union of our beloved Exalt Emmeryn and her wife-to-be, Captain Phila of the Order of Ylissean Pegasus Knights,” the Priestess declares. “Today, we shall ask no petition for objection, as the divine contract between lovers has been sealed, and we await only the public consecration of their bond. Instead, we ask simply that you keep your eyes on the altar and your whispers unbreathed, as our brides partake in the recitation of their vows.”

Phila takes a step towards Emmeryn. Chrom shoots her a thumbs-up, which she doesn’t see—but how could she, when the woman she loves is right there in front of her? From his seat, Chrom can tell she’s stunned breathless, a sheen of tears on her cheeks revealed as Emmeryn tosses back her veil. Phila returns the gesture, pooling the fabric in her hands and tucking it back through her crown, just as Chrom had before. He turns to Lissa, who elbows him in the rib as if to say, _good job._

“Emmeryn, my Exalt,” Phila says, retaking Emmeryn’s hands, and Chrom’s attention shoots once more to the altar. “It was twelve years ago that I swore myself to you as a retainer, and ten that I did again as your beloved—but from the moment I met you, this was the day I dreamed of, when I would at last swear myself to you as your wife. In our years together, you have shown me every shade and color that your love can be. I have seen the love you show your subjects, a warm glow of protection, and the love you show your siblings—the worry you have for their safety, but also the trust you have in their strength. I have seen the love you show your enemies, how you entreat them with mercy, with empathy, despite the crimes they have trespassed against you. And lastly, I have seen the love you have for me, this bright, warm thing we have grown together, whose roots have wound forever about my heart.

“My beloved, no matter the trials we face, no matter the times of ease and confidence, I promise to love you through bliss and pain, in storm and in sun, for the rest of my days. Pray Naga you would have me, for my heart is yours.”

“Oh, my Phila, ever my Knight,” Emmeryn starts, drawing Phila closer, “I have loved you from the moment I met you, when you fell off your Pegasus and into the palace gardens, and I knew a missing piece of my heart had at last been returned. In our ten years together, you have been my softest and loudest joys, my unyielding anchor, my everything. I could not ask for a gentler love, a better Knight to rule by my side. Without your stern kindness, or your warm hands, or the japes you whisper when I’ve grown too gloomy, the weight of Ylisse would be much harder to bear. To be your partner has been the greatest blessing of my life. My darling, let us create a beautiful legacy together, a joy that runs through the veins of our world. A love that heals our scars. If you will have me, Phila, I am yours, forever, in life and in death.”

Phila melts, bringing Emmeryn into her arms, and Chrom is overcome, flush with pride and unfettered elation. At his side, Lissa begins to weep. Really, everyone around him is weeping, and as he turns back to his eldest sister, there becomes a dampness in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

The Priestess glances down at her codex, then looks to Phila. “Do you, Phila, Incumbent Knight Regent of the Halidom of Ylisse, take Her Grace, Emmeryn as your Exalt and wife?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Emmeryn, Her Most Radiant Grace, Exalt of the Halidom of Ylisse, take the Captain Phila as your Knight Regent and wife?”

Emmeryn beams. “Yes. I do.”

Then Phila kisses her, soft and full, and in the tide of applause that follows, it feels as though Ylisse’s last wounds have finally closed. 

+

The wedding reception is no extravagant gala—Emmeryn insisted on keeping things small, another intimate gathering in the courtyard, so they might hear the peoples’ celebration in concert with their own. It reminds Chrom of his last birthday party, with twice as much cake and sparkling wine to go around. Only this time, he prays there’s no grim declaration to bring it all grinding to a halt.

When the music starts up, Emmeryn insists on dancing with him. Then Phila, then Lissa, then Sully, of all people, who makes pointed looks at a reserved and fumbling Sumia while she drags Chrom around the courtyard. Fearing he’s trespassed into some kind of game, he extends his first invitation to Maribelle. She promptly declines, preferring to dance with Lissa, instead, and Chrom takes that as his cue to fetch a drink and a seat.

He finds an empty corner table by the balcony, wreathed in autumn blooms and the night’s cool shadows, and watches the party unfurl from a distance. How easy it is to get caught up in it all, the listless whirl of jewels and silk, the folly of a city far from war. For a flicker, he feels almost guilty, and in effort to quash his guilt, he sips his wine and lets thoughts fill with words scrawled in Robin’s messy hand.

Has it really only been two months since they last wrote each other? It feels like years. Years since the battle in the valley, years since Emmeryn caught a fever and called them home, years since he mistook Robin’s sister for herself. He imagines Robin hunched over in her tent, writing him letters between meetings and trainings, fitting him into the gaps of her dastardly strategies. There is something exhilarating about it, to know he can occupy another’s thoughts that way, to press words to paper and make someone _feel_ something.

In his next letter, he thinks he’ll ask her what weddings are like in Plegia—but he imagines she’d just tell him to hit the books and figure it out for himself. He could go now, while everyone’s too busy dancing and drinking themselves into a stupor to notice the prince slipping out.

He shakes his head. Who is he, thinking of sneaking off to the _library_ of all places in the middle of his sister’s wedding reception?

He needs another drink.

A servant comes by with a fleet of tinkling glasses, and as Chrom takes one, a flash of brown and blonde sidles up beside him.

“Wow, Vaike,” Chrom says, sparing him little more than a sidelong glance. “It’s weird to see you wearing a shirt.”

Vaike slugs him in the arm. “Yeah? Weird to see you wearing two sleeves,” he says, then slings His breath is overhot and smells of liquor, which means there’s probably a flask hidden somewhere in his dress coat. “Come on, lessit down.”

“What?”

Vaike all but pushes Chrom back into his chair, nearly sloshing his drink over the glass’s edge, then pulls up a seat beside him.

“Looks like you’re next, Princey Boy,” Vaike slurs.

Chrom furrows his brow. “Pardon?”

“You heard me.” Vaike flicks the side of Chrom’s glass, and the bubbles in the wine dance and scatter. “Emm just got hitched, and everybody loves a good wedding, ‘specially when the rest of the world’s gone to shit—the pressure’s on.”

“Isn’t Miriel waiting on a ring?”

“Dude. Do I look the Prince of Ylisse? You know, I wanted to kick your ass so hard when we were kids. I had actual dreams about it,” he rambles on. He takes a sip from his own glass, but it’s already empty—one last sticky drop makes a sluggish march into his mouth. “Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve been watching, but every ruffly old noble’s been sizing you up for their lads and ladies back home.”

Chrom shoves his reddening face in his hands. “I’m not getting married, Vaike,” he says, then lifts his head, looking Vaike squarely in the eyes in hopes he’ll believe him. “Not with the war, not with my duties, and not…not when there’s no one I want to marry.”

“Come on. Really? I can name three girls who have crushes on you. And at least two dudes. Up my salary, and maybe I can make something happen.”

“You’ll be happy to know Emm’s arranged for raises at the end of the month,” Chrom tells him. “But enough of this. Please. I already have too much to worry about.”

“Fine,” Vaike says. “What’s the status on the honeymoon? Your sister going to the South Coast? The fighting isn’t as bad there.”

“Well, I railed against it, but they’re coming to Regna Ferox with me,” says Chrom, and when Vaike scratches his head, he clarifies, “for the tournament.”

“Uh…should I be swooning?”

“Hardly,” Chrom mutters. “I worry for her. Emm, that is. Between Phila and Frederick she’ll be well protected, but…the continent is at war. Anything could happen at such a large event like that.”

“But you’re letting her go?”

“I’m Emmeryn’s sword, not her keeper. She wants to see me fight, sure, but she also wants to visit the Khans. Diplomacy is important.”

“Right. See, when I get married, me and Mir aren’t doing nothing but eating strawberry fudge sundaes on the beach,” says Vaike. “That’s what I call a honeymoon.”

“Just pray we win this war, Vaike,” Chrom says, exasperation heavy in his voice, “then, we can all take a vacation.”

+

Robin knows her sister is watching her. Each time Aversa comes back from the battlefield, she makes a point to find Robin wherever she is—the strategy tent, the armory, even the baths, one time—arriving in a flutter of gore and feathers and a smile that lusts for secrets.

When Aversa asked her about Chrom, Robin told her mostly the truth. That Chrom had mailed her a threat upon her life, and she had responded in kind, leading to the proposal of a duel. What she left out was what happened between those promises, the teasing jabs and almost-jokes, the way she almost felt concern for him, almost felt something like friendship—

—and the inconvenient fact that she gave him vital military intel.

She tells herself it was Grima who guided her hand that night. Her meeting with Chrom will be a fated one, one that ends with her Levin blade between his ribs, not him retching his guts out on the sand and dying of dehydration. It was a selfish maneuver, certainly, but with so many of her men felled by the poison, the battle in the valley was destined to become a strategic loss. They’ll recover. They always have.

Even then, there remains the problem of the Deadlords, eleven still lost to the wind, their red eyes glowing in the margins of her dreams. Some nights, she fears the worst, that they’re stalking around villages, or wreaking bloody havoc in distant cities, but without a master to control them, she wonders if they haven’t just shriveled up in the dark corners of the world to sleep.

Robin imagines she might do the same, if she, too, were repeatedly brought back from the dead.

A bright slant of light jags across her vision, and Robin jumps, expecting Aversa to be the one opening her tent flap, eager to coax another story from her lips, but to Robin’s relief, it’s only Henry.

He pokes half his body inside and waves about a parcel. “Special delivery!”

“Is that my missive from Vendar’s troops in the north?” Robin asks.

“Nope! Way better.”

She leaves her desk to meet him in the middle of the room. The package he hands her is small, wrapped in oil-stained brown paper and held together with a sheeny piece of ribbon. When she turns it over, she finds an envelope tied to the back, printed with her name in Chrom’s handwriting.

A grin splits her lips, a sharp, rebellious thing she hopes Henry won’t hold against her. “Well. It appears His Highness hasn’t forgotten about us.”

In haste, she slips the letter from the parcel and folds it open atop the ribbon. 

_To Her Eminent Shadow, Mage Grandmaster Robin of Plegia:_

_Her Eminent Shadow lives! I will admit, I was surprised to hear from you again. With so long between letters, I feared one of your own Risen swordsmen had lopped off your head—which would have been a terrible bore, quite frankly. But as we both live and write, here you are._

_Much has happened since our last correspondence. My sister fell ill with fever, shifting my duties off the battlefield, but by Naga’s grace, she’s returned to full health. In sadder news, Frederick was assigned a new horse, and has been jealously eyeing the poor redshirt who’s been training on his old best friend. Oh, and not to alarm you, but my youngest sister, Lissa, has discovered our letters and since become thoroughly invested in our rivalry. She expects a front row seat to our upcoming duel. I can make no such promises—other than one of my own victory, of course._

_Regarding your last question, I have no ‘romantic drama’ of my own, so you’ll have to seek your fix for sordid gossip elsewhere. However, Emm’s wedding was a wonderful affair, and while we kept the ceremony small, the halidom has taken quite a shine to its new Knight Regent. Should you use that information for any nefarious purposes, I will make your death far longer and agonizing than it needs to be._

_In Naga’s Name and Light,_

_Prince Chrom of Ylisse_

_P.S. I don’t need Frederick around to tell me that “double-edged sword” is another cliché._

_P.P.S. Given my last little trouble on the battlefield, having mistaken your sister for yourself, I’ve provisioned a solution of my own to ensure no further troubles. Enjoy it! Oh, and do forgive the eyebrows. They aren’t so uneven in person._

“A solution, huh?” Robin mumbles. She sets aside the letter and unwraps the package with idle anticipation, expecting some gimmicky curio, payback for the old mummified Risen hand.

Instead, it’s a portrait of Chrom himself.

Robin recoils. The blotchy miniature shows a young man clothed in the same rich blue as his hair, one sleeve cut free to reveal a generously muscled arm. He’s pale, almost as pale as Henry, his face unsmiling, mouth full and stern. His left eyebrow sits higher on his forehead than the right, but it gives him a look of approachability, almost whimsy, softening the jut of his frown. She runs a nail along the smooth angle of his jawline, down his neck, tracing the sinew and shadow of his collarbones before drifting once more to his exposed arm, where the Tear of Naga appears in hasty red strokes on his bicep.

He’s marked. Branded her enemy. And yet, if this painting is at all true to form, he’s easily the most attractive man she’s ever seen.

“Henry,” Robin mutters, “I’m going to kill him.”

“Uhh, that was the plan, right?”

Robin thrusts the miniature into his hands. “Look at him. He’s hideous.”

Henry studies the picture with a tilt of his head, a further squint of his eyes. “Really? He looks pretty handsome to me.”

“Yes, and that’s exactly what makes him hideous. Did you forget that’s _Chrom_ , Henry?” she says, hissing the prince’s name through her teeth. “Put that away at once. Please.” 

“Oh, come on. You should give it another look,” Henry says.

He shoves the painting back between her fingers, and against her will, she fixes on it again, looking for flaws, ugliness, leaching venom from the hollows between brushstrokes. “Gods, he’s so pretentious, sending me his portrait like this. Does he think me some stupid Ylissean noble girl?” she mutters. “Just look at his clothes, that ridiculous collar. Where’s his other sleeve? And _what_ are those pants?”

Henry pinches the linen of her own trousers. “I don’t know—they kinda look like yours. All puffy and stuff.”

She swats him aside, if playfully. “At least I wear matching boots, Henry. Gods, I imagine he’s even worse in person. ‘Look at me, I’m the Prince of Ylisse!’” she exclaims, and on a gale of laughter, unsheathes her Levin sword and swings it about like a jester’s prop. “‘Why, behold my sculpted arms, my perfect jawline! Oh, but I’m terribly insecure about my eyebrows. Did you hear about my winning battle strategy? I swing my sword like an amateur, but all the enemies just swoon at my feet!’”

“Nya-ha! So dashing, Your Highness!” Henry chirps.

Robin dips her blade over his shoulder, like she’s knighting him. “That’s right, Henry my boy. Dashing, not slashing. But if I had better aim, I could be both!”

“Am I interrupting something?”

Robin goes cold, her heart suddenly in her throat. “General Mustafa!” she cries, dropping her sword and stuffing the portrait into one of her deep inner pockets. “I’m so sorry, I’m afraid you caught me in the middle of a rare break,” she stammers, all while Henry giggles along. “Do forgive my lack of decorum.”

“No need to apologize for your reprieve, Grandmaster. Moments of laughter are few and far between these days,” Mustafa says, and relief flows through Robin like warm honeyed tea. “I do wish to speak with you, if you have the time.”

Robin frees her hands from her pockets and smooths out her coat as Henry skirts behind her, leaving them “Of course,” says Robin. She waits for the tent flap to fall before speaking again. Mustafa’s gaze is dark with worry, the lines between his brows deep with shadow. “You seem tense, General. Is something troubling you? I can rework your platoon’s formations, if need be.”

“My son is ill, Grandmaster. I don’t think any change in formation can help with that.”

“Oh. Well, my apologies,” she says. “If you’ve requested leave, I’ll put it through to the King right away.”

“I’m not requesting leave. I’m requesting a trade.”

“A trade?”

Mustafa nods. “On the cusp of the eleventh month, the Khans will hold their tournament in Regna Ferox. As you know, the Khan whose Champion wins will take the throne.”

“Has one of the Khans chosen you as Champion? Even after we raided them two years ago?”

“No, Grandmaster. Khan Basilio, in a show of goodwill, has asked for a member of the Plegian League to attend the tournament proceedings under banner of diplomacy. I volunteered, hoping to bring my family along, show a peaceful side to our country. Of course, I can do no such thing now.”

“A peaceful warlord, huh? That could be rather convincing,” says Robin, tapping her chin. “But I take it you’re asking me to go in your stead.”

“Astute as ever, Grandmaster,” he says. “You are the only one I trust to fill my place. Anyone else, I’m afraid, would only tip us into another war. And, if you’re gone to Ferox, I can retain my post here, and be close to my son.”

“You know, I do believe there are several Feroxi bounties on my head. It could be dangerous, sending the Mage Grandmaster into a pit of wolves like that.”

Mustafa shakes his head. “You forget you’re also a princess.”

“I don’t forget—I prioritize,” Robin says. “You make a good point, though. The presence of a minor Plegian princess will be far less inflammatory than that of the King’s strategist.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“I have an army to command,” she says. “Which means months of plans to draw in advance. But, lucky for you, I believe good conversation is as sharp as any blade. I will go to Ferox, and you, General, will go home to your son.”

“Truly?”

“I’ll provision a horse and cart for you by nightfall. If the King has any objections, I’ll handle them. You should hardly be working at a time like this.”

He clasps her hands and genuflects before her, his head tipped in a bow. “Thank you, Grandmaster. Gods bless you.”

“No need for such shows, General,” Robin says, heat pinking her cheeks. “Go on. And send Henry in if you find him.”

Mustafa departs, and Robin palms the portrait in her pocket, letting the edges sink into her skin. The Khans’ Tournament promises an entire month away from the war, away from her father and the King, posing as nothing more than a Princess. So long as she keeps in line with protocol, she can do as she pleases, speak to whomever. Learn everything her eyes and ears can take. By the General’s word, it sounds too good to be true.

It sounds like freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated. also, if you're looking for good enemies-to-penpals-to-lovers fare, i have to recommend the novella "this is how you lose the time war." it's gay, it's gorgeous, and the ebook is super affordable if you're on a budget. anyway, please take care friends, and look forward to chapter 9 soon!


	9. CHAPTER EIGHT: No Fuss, No Squabbles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! just under the wire with this two-update october!! I decided I'm gonna go back to school (at a different school), so things might slow down while I finish up my applications, but I'm still shooting for 12 chapters/2 full arcs by the end of the year. yay!
> 
> anyway, I hope you like the new chapter. we're getting reeeeaaaaal close to some stuff I've been waiting a long, long time to share...

CHAPTER EIGHT: _No Fuss, No Squabbles_

+

There was a time long before the Schism ripped the continent in twain, starving Plegia of rain-bringing winds, when the land was covered in lakes as clear as polished diamond. On days when the waters lay still, the people would gather at the shoreline to admire their reflections on the surface, to make themselves desirable before the weather took their mirrors away. But the people soon became preoccupied with their image, wanting yet to view themselves at night, or in the rain, or when the breeze stirred the water to a chop. Seeing their need, a group of craftsmen took to carving great ovals of glass, then glazed them in a varnish made from broken swords, giving them the sheen of still, dark water. They put them up for sale, and the people came to their shops in fervid droves, buying them up and framing them and placing them in every room of their homes. _Asj’denalej,_ they came to call their mirrors in the Old Tongue, “the lakes of the walls.” 

Before her own mirror, Robin does not so much as admire as scrutinize, her gaze tacked on the way her gold circlet lays about her brow, the stiffness of the embroidery along her collar. These are costume. Finery, gilt for the part. Without her sword at her side, her true weapon must become her appearance. The Feroxi know of her prowess, her posture, but now she must train her eyes, her mouth, the tilting axis of her neck. She must look serious and brave, yet also charming and light and unsuspecting. She must make people love her and fear her at once. 

It is all too much to place on one woman. For that, she’s almost grateful she was raised as a warrior instead of a princess.

“Princess Daraen,” she mutters to herself, watching her lips tangle each syllable. “I am Princess Daraen of the Western Coast of Plegia.”

It is a noble name, shallow and forward on the tongue. A veneer. It matches the reflection staring back at her,

She smooths her hands down the front panels of her robe. The fabric is a deep plum velvet, embellished in delicate botanical threading and pinned together with gold buttons shaped like tiny birds in flight. The robe cuts open at her hips, revealing silken pants in the same rich purple; they cling tight to her shins and ankles, their lacy hems skimming the tops of her short-heeled booties. Robin’s hands drift once more to her circlet, a loop of golden nerves that converge to form the Brand of Grima, each eye inlaid with a bloodstone iris.

“My, my little bird—you look absolutely darling. Are we playing Princess again today?”

Robin turns from her mirror. Aversa has poured herself into the half-open threshold of her room, her mouth agleam with a teasing smile.

“This just arrived from the tailor. I was simply trying it on,” Robin explains.

“I see,” Aversa says. She makes her way into the room at a honey-slow pace, tapping her nails across the chairs and bedposts. “It looked like you were practicing.”

Robin plays coy. “Practicing what?”

“How not to be you.”

“Well, I’m making an effort,” Robin stammers. “I have plenty of time.”

She takes Robin’s chin in her hand and rakes a nail down her jaw—softly, not so hard as to cut. “Oh, Robin. This must be so hard for you. Always the smartest person in the room, and here you are, having to play dumb.”

“Play dumb?” Robin exclaims. “I’m representing the Plegian League—I should hardly seem unassuming, let alone dull.” 

Aversa clucks her tongue. “Do you want people to see through your ruse?” she asks. “Besides. We don’t want all those Feroxi nobles thinking you’re a threat.”

“But I am a threat.”

“You know what I mean,” says Aversa, a laugh lightening her voice. “This is a whole different battlefield, little bird. Do you remember when we were girls, we went running around the servants’ quarters, and we found that rattlesnake coiled up in the laundry? That is what you must become. Warm cloth. Soft, unthreatening edges. But within…” her nails trace the slope of Robin’s neck, landing on the bare spot of skin above her blouse collar. “…venom. Fangs.”

“I don’t remember that at all,” Robin says. “But I see what you’re saying. And I know to only act in self-defense.”

“I’m glad to hear it, then,” she says. “Besides, Master Validar will have any necessary cruelty taken care of.”

Robin’s heart drops through the floor, a sudden cold heavy in her limbs. Her father was never part of the plan. When Gangrel approved her attendance, she asked only for Henry, Tharja, and a small retinue of soldiers to accompany her to Ferox. The thought of her father looming over her, watching her from every shadow, shears her timid excitement at its roots.

She turns from the mirror to find Aversa in the midst of a soundless exit. Robin tails after her, her dread smelting to a firebrand of anger, pressing hot up her spine. She follows her sister around a corner, down the stairs, and finally catches her on a straightaway. With an outstretched hand, she grabs her by one of the thick silver bangles on her wrist.

“Aversa, wait,” she says. “Why would you say something like that and just leave?”

“Because you’re smart—even when you’re playing dumb,” Aversa says, pivoting. Her grin has returned, sharp as sunlight on a blade. “And I could tell by your reflection you figured me out _rather_ quickly.”

“You’re no better than him,” Robin mutters.

Aversa laughs, one hand poised coyly over her chest. “I’m ashamed you ever thought I was.” She removes her hand and tucks it under Robin’s chin, lifts her head so her own casts a shadow on it. “Let us make a deal, Robin. You allow Master Validar to tag along on your little diplomatic holiday—no fuss, no squabbles—and I keep quiet about your…secret dalliance with the Ylissean Prince.”

“Dalliance? You insult me,” Robin sputters.

“Ah-ah—I said no fuss.” She taps Robin’s nose. “Just say the word, and I promise your next letter won’t mysteriously end up on Master Validar’s nightstand.”

“Fine,” Robin says, bitter in her concession. “He can accompany me to Regna Ferox. _No fuss, no squabbles._ ”

“Very good,” she says, grinding a heel into the stone as she turns the other way. “Do say hello to _him_ for me, if you know what I mean.” She tosses a wink over her shoulder, then in a flush of black silk and feathers, she’s gone. 

“Dammit! Aversa!” Robin calls, but only the flesh-red stones answer back, her voice strained and tinny its echo.

“Cursing your sister won’t earn you any favors.”

Robin faces her father with a clenched fist and wrinkled brow. He stands mere a few steps behind her, his figure remade from the tar-thick shadows of the hallway, torchlight running orange down his cheeks. An apothecary smock covers his usual regalia, and without the tattoos on his chest laid bare, the bone-spikes of gold leering at his neckline, he looks smallish and gaunt, almost skeletal. Almost conquerable. 

Robin puffs her chest against the tightness of her robe. “I don’t need Aversa’s favor. I’m her Commander.”

Validar steps closer. He smells of alkaline and small fires, of the sulfur-sweet afterbirth of a hex.

“Tell me, Robin, who are you all dressed up for?” he asks.

“My own reflection.”

“Brave today, are we?” He reaches out a hand bent covetously, aiming to touch her circlet, but Robin recoils. “You look so much like your mother,” he continues, undeterred. “She was the last to wear that crown.”

Robin’s skin puckers, chilled with adrenaline. He has stepped outside his own bounds, now. They never speak of her mother. Ever. As far as Robin knows, she could have been plucked from the sands wholly motherless, sprung from a prayer and a spell and a red-black drop of the Fell Dragon’s bloodline.

But her life is not some child’s folktale, some lie spun to hush her questions. She is a real girl, and real girls have mothers, whether they know them or not.

“Why don’t you ever tell me about her?” Robin asks, and her heart _thu-thumps_ with twenty-one years’ worth of curiosity.

Validar folds his hands before his chest. His mouth lifts at the corners, but it’s an expression far too dark to call a smile. “You wouldn’t like the truth.”

“And when have you ever cared what I like?” 

Her father pauses, and in his silence, it’s as though the whole castle swells with a breath held overlong. Something bright swims in his gaze. It is not love. Not longing. Robin wonders, vaguely, if it is regret, but that doesn’t seem right, either, as she knows there’s little regret he’s ever had for his cruelties.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, finally, and the tension collapses, replaced by a new persistent nagging in the back of Robin’s mind. _Who was she? What did he do to her?_

“I hope you’ve agreed to let me join you in Ferox,” he adds.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“That’s right. You didn’t,” says Validar, the steely edge back in his voice. “Mustafa wanted you to take his place, and I offered a price for the change. He took it without hesitation.”

Robin’s fists curl, scrunching stiff waves in the palms of her gloves. He’s lying. Mustafa knows of her problems with her father—the time away was the attraction in the offer.

But Robin plays along. For the next two months, she’ll be doing little else.

“I see,” she says, starching her features, echoing the chill of her father’s tone. “And His Majesty the King had no objections?”

“None. In fact, sending our Grandmaster is far more favorable,” he says. “Let me show you something.”

Robin gets no time to object. Validar opens his palm, and in the span of a breath, the shadows of the hall rush in to fill it, twisting inward like a whirlpool, tearing the floor out from under their feet.

A new room—or rather, the illusion of a room, puddled and blurred at the edges—takes shape in bolts of black and violet, lit by nothing more than a corona of waning candles. They have traveled only in their minds, but Robin knows this place is here, tucked away in some dark ventricle of the palace, mere a few locked doors and free hours away from discovery.

Robin looks at the candles again. Their flames are steady, unflickering—born of magic, not a match. They surround a fixture that reminds her of an acacia tree, five core branches bent and coiled to form half-sphere baskets. All empty, save for one near the bottom, boasting a purple jewel hewn to a perfect orb.

“Go on. Touch it.”

“Is this a test?”

“It’s an assignment.”

Validar nears, so Robin reaches, fearing punishment if she won't. To her surprise, the stone is solid and cold beneath her fingers; she slides a finger down its rightward edge, and it shivers with a plume of light like smoke, frail and fleeting.

“This is Sable, the jewel of Plegia,” Validar tells her, “one of five gemstones meant for the

“The Fire Emblem…” Robin repeats. The relic’s name is metallic on her tongue, its honed edges cutting sharp into her gums. “Lady Daiada said it was cursed.”

Validar hums. “Quite the opposite. If we could get our hands on it, it’d be an unimaginable boon.”

“Because it can raise Grima…right?”

Validar joins her at the tree, his hand joining hers on Sable’s lambent surface. “With all its stones, yes,” he says. His hand trails upward, to where another basket lays empty. “And we’ve found another. Precisely. Down to the inch.”

“Gules. The one in Regna Ferox,” Robin says, because all his pomp and prologue can only lead to another burden set upon her shoulders. “You want me to take it.”

He touches her, now, his nails following the curve of her circlet, the fall of her hair, and it’s all Robin can do not to toss her head back and slam it into his chin. “I do, and you will, _Princess.”_

Robin bites back a grimace. “Where is it, then?”

His palms settle on her shoulders. “There’s a chamber beneath the Arena, much like this one, guarded by a triumvirate of wyverns. Slay them, and the jewel will be yours,” he says. “As for your escape—I’ll be sure to cut a path no one can cross.”

Against her mounting unease, her mind races, drawing plans from a hundred murky hypotheticals, watching herself sneak and cobble her way out of a dungeon she knows nothing about. The longer she thinks, imagining a jewel like a lantern in her hands, guiding her through stone vents and tunnels, she can almost see it in the dark of the walls, moving like oil in water.

This is her destiny. Calculation into destruction, every scale tipped in her favor. In _his_ favor. She cannot ignore it, cannot pretend it does not fester beneath all the silk and gold. And as the room twists again, dim light belching over the shadows, the crown on her head begins to burn. 

+

On the morning of Chrom’s departure, it seems that all of Ylisstol Castle has woken to a blustering start. His walk down to the barracks is scored by the clang of dishes carted in for breakfast, of servants scurrying along the halls with luggage rolling in their wake. He finds Stahl and Sully in command of the wagons, checking off boxes of provisions as a mix of servants and soldiers load them in. Feathers float about the cold morning air, drifting in from where a small dispatch of Pegasus Knights is preparing to lead them from above.

“Lissa! You’re going to freeze to death if you don’t pack a better coat!”

Chrom turns to his right, just in time to catch Maribelle sprinting after his little sister, her arms burdened with all manner of fur-lined mantles.

“She’s right!” Chrom calls to Lissa, cupping his hands around his mouth. "You really will freeze, tiny thing."

“And what do you know about that?” Lissa exclaims as Maribelle finally catches up to her, poised to drag her away. “Speak for yourself, Mr. ‘I Cut The Sleeves Off My Shirts.’”

A flash of silver and red enters his periphery, halved by the dark shaft of a training lance. “She has a point.”

Chrom rolls his eyes. “Not you, too, Captain.”

“You know, I’m still getting used to that,” says Cordelia, shyly tucking back a strand of her hair. “The first time Dame Phila called me a Captain, I was…overcome.”

“Emm says you just about bawled.”

“Please, don’t phrase it that way,” she says, shaking her head. “I’ll admit, though—I wish I were going with you.”

“That’s the drawback of rank, isn’t it? Now, you have a whole platoon to lead on the battlefield,” he says. “Were I not honor-bound to fight as Flavia’s champion, I’d be joining you at the border.”

“Would that that were the case.”

“We’ll be alright. Sumia says you’ve appointed her a good squad to lead us with,” says Chrom. He doesn’t miss the way Cordelia deflates, just a little, at the mention of her best friend going to Ferox in her stead.

Cordelia gestures out to the gaggle of girls saddling their Pegasi, gossiping to each other over the nervous beating of the great creatures’ wings. “As you can see, it’s mostly the fledglings,” she says. “We prefer not to send them into the thick of battle, if we can help it.”

As a few of the young Knights salute their captain, one familiar voice shouts, “Look! That’s _Prince_ Chrom! You’re supposed to bow!”

Chrom shakes his head, laughter on his lips. “No, you’re not,” he scolds the girl, her face half-concealed by a Pegasus’s folded wing. “Come over here, Anise.”

Anise shuffles out from behind the Pegasus, picking a few of its white feathers from her ponytail. She looks stronger since he last saw her, her armor less bulky on her shoulders. “I was uh, actually hoping to find you this morning, anyway,” she stammers, “But Captain Cordelia gave me a bunch of chores, first.”

Cordelia cocks her head. “And have you done them?”

“Yes! Yes, of course,” says Anise, going rigid. “I think I saw Clarissa slacking off, though.”

“I’ll handle it,” says Cordelia, though with a tinge of reluctance in her voice. She starts towards the younger Knights, pivoting to walk backwards as she waves goodbye. “Safe travels, Captain. If I don’t see you, that is.”

Chrom returns her wave. “You take care, Captain.”

Anise watches over her shoulder, waiting for Cordelia to turn around, then pokes her elbow into Chrom’s side. “She likes you.”

“Anise, please. I don’t have time for such things,” he says, fiddling with his sword to distract from his growing discomfort. He still feels so awful for letting her down all those months ago. But then he sees the way Frederick looks at her, all his chivalrous restraint and pent-up longing, and knows that even if he did feel something for Cordelia, it’d be easier to let her go than hurt Frederick by loving her.

“Anyway, I have something for you,” Anise continues, and Chrom is grateful for the break from his thoughts. She moves to unbutton a pouch at her hip, a tiny leather thing slung beside her canteen, and pulls out a scroll tied with a piece of shoelace. “Sorry it’s all rolled up, those pouches are a lot smaller than they look.”

He unfolds the scroll to find it’s instead a letter in an envelope, marked only with his name and title, by a hand he now knows as well as his own.

“Where did you get this?” he asks her.

“I…may have seen it while I was on mail duty and asked if I could take it to you personally?”

“Gods, I was afraid you’d gone flying off to Plegia again,” he says. “Which was my fault in the first place, I know.”

“Oh, that’s no big. I got to meet Robin, after all,” Anise says. “Do you two still hate each other?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” she says, leaving him, despite his earliest objections, with the tiniest of bows.

Alone with the letter, Chrom feels a curl of excitement in his stomach—did she send him a portrait, too? Will he finally see the face of his enemy? _Will she be beautiful, like Anise said?_

He can’t wait to find out. He ducks around the nearest pillar and tears the envelope at the flap.

_To the Concern of His Royal Highness, Prince Chrom of Ylisse,_

_I must say, Your Highness, it’s a relief to hear you’re fantasizing about my death again. I was starting to worry you’d gone soft on me, sending me the original copy of “His Most Pompous Wyvernshit” and all. I’m glad you took a liking to the title, seeing as you are absolutely pompous, and I would not be surprised if a wyvern had indeed shat you out on the day you were born. I’d surmise your sisters have their own suspicions, as well._

_Nevertheless, you should know I have no intention of returning your favor. You will know me when you see me, and by then, it will surely be too late._

_There will be some time before you hear from me again. I cannot, and will not, tell you where my war travels take me next, but I would not be surprised if our fateful encounter happens very soon. As always, I look forward to cleaning your blood off my blade._

_In Grima’s Glorious Dark,_

_Robin_

_P.S. If I might impart on you a word of advice, you should worry less about my cliches, and more about your eyebrows._

He peeks around for any onlookers before letting himself laugh into his hand. Oh, Robin. If he weren’t going to be the one to slay her, he figures her ego would swallow her whole. At least she continues to entertain him, despite their armies being locked in war.

“Milord!” Frederick’s voice careens around the corner, thick with urgency. “Stahl and Sully need you at the front gates!”

Chrom sighs and peels himself off the column. As he makes his way towards Frederick, he pockets the letter swiftly, careful to press it flat against his chest, but does nothing to wipe away his growing smile.

+

Snow has not yet touched the southern apron of the Plegian Tundralands, but the air is sharp with the promise of it, the clouds gathering in a silver pall on the horizon, and whenever Robin breathes in, the air chills the nerves in her teeth. As far as she knows, she’s never been to the Tundralands, but there’s something familiar about the sensation, like the edge-shine of a memory, bright yet stubbornly out of reach. When she voices these thoughts to Henry, he tells her that if she’s ever come this far north, only her father would know.

They do not speak of it again.

By now, Robin’s retinue—which consists of only herself, Tharja and Henry, and a smattering of stone-faced cavalrymen—has pushed far ahead of Validar’s, leaving at least a full day’s travel between them. The distance offers a pale sliver of the freedom she wanted, and she grasps it like the leather reins of their wagon, her knuckles curled white out of fear of losing it.

Sunset comes dingy yellow through the clouds. They stop for the night in a village that seems made for wanderers, an asterism of ramshackle inns and shops with half-lidded windows, oozing light that beckons like an outstretched hand. For their own lodgings, they settle on an inn-slash-tavern near the back edge of town, where they can get a meal and a drink and hopefully a good night’s rest. Robin knows she should hang at the back of their procession, let her men guard her like she’s truly the plucky noble she pretends to be, but she insists to take the lead, walking them into the bustling tavern like the general she was raised to be.

She’s left the crown behind and wrangled her hair into its usual pigtails, but even after a week of travel, the guise of a princess carries an imitable polish, one that has twenty heads—bearded and wrinkled, pert-nosed and smooth—swinging her way.

Henry slips a hand in hers. “Just act normal,” he whispers. “Nobles go to taverns all the time.”

On Robin’s other side, Tharja threads their arms together. “I can make you invisible, if you want,” she offers.

“I don’t want to be invisible,” Robin says, almost laughing. “I want a drink.”

They sidle up to the bar, and the bartender, a woman with an eyepatch and a voice like coarse wool, offers them hefty shots of something she calls a “house special.” Robin picks the glass between her fingers and swirls the contents, a dark green liquor with a soapy sheen. While Robin takes a cautious sip (it tastes like a cross between fish oil and shoe polish, and she won’t be taking another), and Henry kindly slides his down the bar, Tharja downs hers in a single gulp, then promptly excuses herself to the back washroom.

Robin looks for a place to deposit her glass—but the tap of something wooden against her back breaks her focus. 

She swivels on her stool. Amid the chaos of half-drunken soldiers and merchants, the old woman standing before her is wildly out of place. Her clothes are as white as her eyes, blotched in cataracts, and her bare, wrinkled hands look close to frostbitten, mangled blue-black over the scepter head of her cane. She looks at Robin with a particular shade of joy, one of someone who has at last found something they’ve lost. 

“Morgana…is that you?” she asks.

Robin’s brow furrows. “Who?”

The woman laughs, a hard, phlegmy sound. “My, you haven’t aged a day,” she continues. “You were supposed to bring me peaches from the capitol.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m the woman you’re looking for,” Robin says.

“Don’t play games with me, Momo,” says the woman, jabbing her cane. “Where are my peaches?”

“Miss, my name is Daraen,” Robin tells her, and she spots Henry’s responding smile out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t know anyone named Morgana.”

“No, you must. You look just like her. She didn’t have a sister, did she? No, she was always the only one. Her daddy’s little girl…”

Robin’s discomfort rises from her gut—her throat feels crammed full of cotton. She scans the room for an escape, one of her soldiers, or Tharja, or maybe a waitress in need of saving from an excessively rowdy customer. Anything to get her away from this strange woman.

Then like a beacon, just past the door, shines a familiar dome of orange-red hair, cut to pieces by a black wool sweatband.

“Excuse me,” she tells the woman, who frowns, being half-blind but knowing still Robin’s shift in posture, the way her body coils on the edge of flight. “I think one of my soldiers is looking for me.”

And fly she does—she threads a quick path through every gap and hole in the growing crowd, lifting the hem of her robes so as not to trip. By the time she reaches Gaius, he’s settled in a booth, alone, with a mug of beer spilling over with froth. Robin takes a second look, just to be sure it’s him, then makes her way to his side.

“Gaius, do me a favor and act like you need me.”

“Whoa—Bubbles? Jeez, I almost didn’t recognize you. Guess I’m just used to the hood and the, you know,” he makes a brim above his eyes with the heel of his hand, “creepy wizard shadows.”

Robin’s face flattens. “I’m here in disguise,” she confesses through her teeth. “So, don’t call me Robin, okay?”

“Whatever. You’re always Bubbles to me,” he says.

Robin scoots in on the bench across from him. “What are you doing here? Is this another job, or have you been following me?”

Gaius sets down his mug. “Second one.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yep. Been trailing you since you set out from the capital, then got ahead chasing a lead on a _very_ wealthy princess traveling through the Tundralands to Ferox.”

Robin leans in, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You do realize _I’m_ the Princess.”

“No shit, Bubbles. You look like a regular raspberry creampuff,” he says. “The highest of compliments, by the way.”

“Why were you following me?” she asks.

“Because I have something for you,” he says, and before Robin can ask—though she knows, deep in her heart, what he’s about to give her—he deposits a new letter from Chrom in her hands.

She runs her fingers over the ridges of the envelope, along the damning cursive of her name. “When did this start up again?”

“Some poor, lost kid on a half-dead mule said he had a letter for you, asked which way to the palace. I told him that for a couple silver marks, I could take the job off his hands. Guess he thought that was a fair trade, ‘cause now I’m here.”

“I take it your last ‘big job’ was successful,” Robin says, diverting the subject. It’s all she can do to not rip into the letter burning a hole in her palms. 

“On the contrary, Bubbles, it was so _un_ successful, that there’s now a warrant out for my arrest in the South of Plegia. So, unless you can get that scrubbed with your Mage Grandmasterly powers, I think I might be bumming it to Ylisse,” he says. “Especially if I have a letter to take with me.” 

“You need a break, Gaius,” Robin says. “His Highness and I have been running you ragged.”

“Anything for forbidden love…”

Robin makes a fake gagging noise, her face contorted in comic disgust. “Gods, I’d never,” she exclaims. “You should come to Ferox with us, though. We’ll be there for the Khans’ Tournament, and there should be plenty of noble pockets to pick. I can find someone else to do my epistolary bidding.”

“Well, if you insist,” he says, then some stray thought brightens his face, making him look almost quizzical. “Say, are we…friends, Bubbles? Or should I say Princess Bubbles?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Dammit, sorry,” he says. “But really. Are we friends?”

“I don’t have friends. I can’t,” Robin tells him. “But if I could, I’m sure you’d be one of them.”

He elbows her in the side, and she barely stops herself from returning it. “Well, I’m touched. I should buy you a drink for that.”

“Feel free,” Robin says. “Just…don’t get the house special.”

+

That night, Robin shares a room at the inn with Tharja and Henry. While she and Tharja take the two narrow beds, Henry happily agrees to sleep on the floor, chattering to the bugs that skitter across the wood.

“Is he going to do that all night?” Tharja asks Robin from where she perches on the edge of her bed, working a brush through the wind-matted ends of her hair.

“I’m surprised you’re not as interested,” Robin says. With half her mouth burrowed in her blankets, the words come muffled. “Surely you’d like some new creatures for your hexes.”

“Have you read the letter yet?” Tharja asks.

“No,” Robin answers, and she’s rather proud of her self-control. “I’ve got it under my pillow, though.” _And his terrible little portrait is in my bags._

“Ooh, did Lady Robin hear from Prince Chrom again?” Henry chirps from the floor.

“What are you going to do when he dies, and you can’t swap insults with him anymore? Are you going to find another Prince to pick on?” Tharja asks, then her eyes seem to darken, her long fingers suddenly tense on the handle of her brush. “They are still _insults_ , right?”

“Yes, Tharja. The nastiest of them,” Robin says. She pulls the letter from beneath her pillow. “Come here. We can read it together. You too, Henry.”

“Awh, but there’s a centipede! Look at the little guy. Hmm, I wonder what color your blood is…”

“He’s getting to be too much for me, Lady Robin,” says Tharja. She’s already halfway to Robin’s bed. “Sit up, dear—I’ll brush your hair.”

Robin adjusts on the bed, propping her back against the pillow, and Tharja curls in beside her, takes to loosening her hair from its ties. As the first tangled strands hit her shoulders, Robin cracks open the letter and reads it aloud, giving her best impression of his princely air.

_“Dear Robin,_

_Since our last correspondence, I have consulted with the royal physician, and I am afraid there is nothing that can be done about the miserable state of my eyebrows. I am cursed, undoubtedly, and will be until I meet my grave. I’d tell you to weep for me, but I’ll have long killed you by then._

_I know not where your travels will take you, but I myself will be far from Ylisse in the coming months. As you, I will not disclose the location of these travels, or divulge of their relevance to the war at hand, but I can tell you I face a trial that will give me quite the edge in our duel._

_Do stay sharp, Robin. I’ll be waiting._

_In Naga’s Name and Light,_

_Chrom.”_

Robin bottles her laughter with a forced, dry cough. “Back to the informalities, I see,” she says. “Can you believe him?”

“I’ll never let him kill you,” Tharja comments. She drags her brush down the mid-length of Robin’s hair, and Robin tries not to yelp when the teeth snag in a particularly hefty knot.

“Yeah—we’ll be right behind you when you battle him, ready to rip out his guts!” Henry adds from the floor.

“Now that wouldn’t be fair,” she tells them. Nor would it be fun. There’s something titillating about it, the fantasy of herself and Chrom alone on the battlefield, just them and the wind and a dance of swords and fate.

“This second paragraph confounds me, though,” she adds. “He says he’ll face a trial, one that will make him stronger in battle, but I haven’t directed troops anywhere but into Ylisse. Which means…”

Robin drops the letter, a blush rising on her cheeks as her heart thunders in shock. It feels too soon. Too real. She had joked of their impending encounter to mislead him, but now it is her who has been misled.

Tharja stills her brush. “Lady Robin? What is it?”

“The tournament,” she says, all but breathless. “Chrom’s in the tournament.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robin: I can’t have friends :/ the god of destruction sleeping in my heart said no :/  
> Henry and Tharja: what are we??? chopped liver??
> 
> also Fred and Cordy are lowkey annoying me with how stagnant they feel and I’m thinking of giving Sev a different dad in this—Frederick is just my designated thot, you know? I always stick him with somebody new. If I do that here, it'll be Cherche (*heart eyes*), so the suggestion box remains closed. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading!!! I’m really excited for this next chapter, and I hope you will be too!


	10. CHAPTER NINE: An Enigma of Blades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! enjoy the new chapter! ~things are getting EXCITING~
> 
> content warnings for this chapter: mentions of blood and animal death in section one, canon-typical melee violence, (1) spicy word

CHAPTER NINE: An Enigma of Blades

+

Chrom dreams again of a lurid red wound above the mountains, of Risen spilling from the maw of it, of the earth blazed to scorch all around him. The image haunts him into his waking hours, burned into his vision. He wonders if he hasn’t broken a vessel in his eye, the way the color spreads like spider-silk across his periphery, but then he looks at the sky, a flat gray puddle above the trees, or the snow-hazed path unfurling behind him, and it disappears, lost to the ice and fog.

At least he’ll sleep better tonight. These woods end at the city gates, and Khan Flavia has promised the best of accommodations for her champion and his retinue. The thought of a warm bed and a full stomach steers him on through the snow, making the cold a little less abrasive, the wind less harsh on his cheeks.

“The storm’s really picking up,” Sully says from where she’s anchored herself among their sacks of provisions, her gaze pulled out the back of the wagon. “If we don’t move faster, snow’s gonna pile up on the covering, slow us down. I ought to get back out there and give them a whip.”

“You’re freezing, Sully. You need to stay here, where it’s warm. Frederick can take care of the horses,” says Chrom.

“You call this warm?” she snaps, pulling the hood of her cloak tighter around her face.

“Don’t listen to Chrom—he’s like a human furnace,” Lissa pipes up. She’s commandeered the middle of the wagon, several blankets draped in a messy heap over her body. “Hey, you two could snuggle…”

Sully and Chrom exchange similar disgusted glances, then burst into laughter.

“Sorry Princess, but I just lost feeling in my toes—I’m not about to lose my pride, too,” Sully says.

“And I’d rather _not_ greet Khan Flavia with a black eye,” Chrom adds.

A gust of wind slams the wagon with a howl; the cedar bows rattle and sigh, the left-side canvas buffeting inward, making a sound like a troubled heartbeat.

“I’m worried about ‘Mia and her fledglings,” Sully says. “They must’ve flown right into this thing.”

“Emm and Phila, too,” adds Lissa. “I hope they’re not stranded.”

Chrom tenses, every muscle and bone taut with worry. More and more white covers their path, and with it, the red seeps in, a sprawling bloodstain bounding the back of the wagon. Chrom pinches the middle of his brow and shuts his eyes, but the dark offers no reprieve from the onslaught of color. _What is happening to me?_ he wonders.

He shakes his head, and the red disperses.

Lissa scoots towards him. “Hey, are you okay?”

Before he can answer, the wagon lurches, the horses whinny and bray—they grind to a jagged halt, sending their provisions tumbling over the floor.

Frederick emerges from the front, the cold flush leached from his face. “Milord, the horses, they’re—”

An iron axeblade rips through the wagon covering, inches from Lissa’s head. She screams, wracking her brother to his core. He lunges to steady her as she scrambles to her feet, her staff clutched in a white-knuckled grip.

“What the hell?” shouts Sully. She grabs her lance off the wall.

Chrom unsheathes his Falchion. “Everybody, out the back!”

More blades stab through, swords and lance-points, arrows caught by their fletching.

“Risen,” Chrom grumbles. “Lissa, can you use your magic to stun them?”

“If I blast them, we’ll lose the wagon cover!” Lissa exclaims.

“Milady, I think that’s a price we’re going to have to pay,” Frederick urges.

A sword drags down Sully’s side of the wagon, gashing the canvas wide open. Snow rushes in—blades and eyes gleam through.

“Make it quick, Princess!” Sully calls.

Lissa’s face pinches in resolve. “Okay—get down, everyone!”

Chrom falls at Lissa’s side while Frederick shields her from the back, gauntleted hands locked firmly on her shoulders. They tip their heads down, faces scrunched against the coming light, and Lissa hoists her staff into the air.

A tide of heat flows over them, followed by the crack of air, of fire shearing through canvas and wood, the wagon toppling to wreckage around them. There are screams—hard, guttural sounds—and armor clunking. A beat, where Chrom steels his nerves, assures himself the fire hasn’t touched them. Then they break apart in a bloom of blades and light and go leaping into the fray.

Chrom spares a heartbeat to assess the field: the Risen on the front lines are stunned, unsteady, their weapons slack at their sides, but there are more behind them, writhing and cavorting, blotting out the snow with their dark.

He plunges his blade into a lancer’s chest, sticks another up through the ribs, cuts the mutton-sack head clean off an axman. The cold tightens his muscles, biting up his exposed arm, but he steels himself against it, focused only on the kill.

The air sings. Arrows flash through the air, motes of black that stick hard, imprecise landings in the wagon’s smoldering remains.

“Look out!” Chrom calls. “They’re in the trees!”

They all drop again, and Chrom aims low, cuts the incoming Risen at their spongy knees and calves before spearing them into the snow. With Frederick at her side, Lissa slings orbs of light into the trees—the archers fall to the earth in a chorus of wet thuds. When there are no more arrows flying, he stands and surveys the area, feeling a wave of relief as he sees his sister and comrades are safe.

“Frederick, stay near Lissa,” he commands. “Sully and I will clear the woods.”

“I’ve got the west flank,” says Sully, rising with her lance firm in hand.

Chrom matches her. The Risen numbers have shrunk, but there remain enough to pose a danger, staggering towards him with their weapons ready to swing. He takes them as they come; they charge, and he stabs, rendering the forest floor a fracas of gore and ash. Once he’s cleared the flank, he takes a moment to catch his breath, soothe the ache in his lungs stirred up by the cold, but another Risen emerges from the shadows of the trees, her movements lithe and deliberate. Chrom squints through the snow. 

This one is different.

Her skin is pale and smooth, absent the rot, the festering sutures. Bronze armor melts down her cheeks and neck, rolls in heavy, bloated plates down the length of her biceps. She carries a moon-silver longsword with a braided hilt, swinging it wildly as she walks through the mire of Risen towards him, her gaze as cruel and red as his dreams.

He steels his grip and thinks of a fairy tale. Old soldiers with old blades, risen from the dead to stalk the night. The Loptyrian Deadlords, the last wild fables of a people none are sure is past or fiction.

She, however, is very much real.

Chrom shields his face with his blade—the Deadlord locks onto the glint of it and lets out an infernal howl, then barrels towards him with her sword held still, poised to strike.

Falchion meets it with a clang so sickeningly hard, it echoes in Chrom’s teeth. She loosens the blade, makes another strong, but Chrom is swift to block it. They stagger back towards the wagon wreckage, the snow raining harder with their every step, dampening the fire and tacking to their lashes.

_“I…am…Simia,”_ the Deadlord says over the clash of their blades. Her voice grates like the gears of a broken clock, unoiled and jagged and too sharp for his ears. “ _I see…the Brand…”_

Chrom drives his heels into the snow. “You’re a Deadlord,” he grinds out.

_“Hnng. Naga’s spawn…”_

A presence creeps up on his back—he spins, slicing the encroaching Risen from shoulder to hip, and catches Simia’s blade just before it slashes his nose.

_“I…felt you,”_ she continues, “ _the master’s heart…you…were there…”_

Chrom pays her no mind, keeping his focus on the movement of her sword, occasionally flickering to her legs, anything she could use to handicap him. Whatever she says is a ruse meant to startle him. Maybe a history, old words spoken through this vicious ghost of her.

The red of her eyes brightens. Like she’s listening. Waiting for an answer.

Chrom remains silent—he brings his Falchion into her longsword once more, hard enough to throw sparks.

_“But I am…free now…free…”_

A shriek tears across the battlefield. Chrom risks a glance towards the sound. Mere feet from him, a Risen lancer has Lissa pinned to a charred wagon bow, his lance-point buried in her sleeve.

Chrom’s heart lurches. “Lissa!” he cries, but fear cuts his voice to tatters, and she is screaming too loudly to hear the thin, strangled sound that lingers.

_“…to kill.”_

Simia knees him in the groin, sending a flame of pain shooting down his legs and knocking him back-first into the snow. It cradles him, tendrils of ice seeping through his clothes, searing his skin. He braces Falchion over his chest, but his grip falters, his whole body stunned by the ache in his lower body.

At once, the world seems to halt its spinning. The wind quiets to a hush. Snow dangles unfallen in the air. Simia’s eyes flare like blown coals, and a new red cuts across them, nerves of scarlet light that mingle and flay down the length of her sword, a thousand hairline breaks in the air between them. 

Then, something moves. Metal, puncturing bone and flesh. As ichor splatters hot onto Chrom’s clothes, the snow begins to fall again, and with it, Simia’s sword hits the ground, the light of her eyes dimmed to full dark. Chrom works his jaw, but not even a gasp comes out—the ichor drips black off a gold and white blade, plunged through the heartless center of Simia’s ribs.

The sword slides out. Simia flakes away in a gale of lightless cinders, and to Chrom’s surprise, there is no one standing in her place.

He shuffles to his feet. Lissa is trembling against the wagon bow, the Risen that once held her pinned now little but flecks of ash on her skirt. Sully and Frederick are paces away from her, the both of them sore and stunned and covered in Risen guts, their gazes trained on a spot near the wagon’s bludgeoned back apron.

Chrom takes a sharp breath in. Their savior is a blue-haired shadow of a boy, tall and lean-muscled and draped in the colors of Ylisse. The wingspan of a dark steel butterfly hides his eyes and nose, but his mouth appears in a strained frown, like he’s pressing his lips together to hide their fullness. His sword lies sheathed in a bloodred scabbard, one that looks cumbersomely long for his leg. For a moment, Chrom wonders if he isn’t another phantom of the past, a soldier awakened from the depths of history.

“Who are you?” Chrom asks, stepping forward.

The boy is silent. He dithers a bit, giving each of them a once-over, then says, finally, “I am called Marth.”

“Like the Hero King,” Lissa supplies.

Marth nods. “Precisely.”

“And where do you come from, Marth?” Frederick asks, his voice dripping with skepticism.

“Devastation.”

Chrom sobers. There is a deep sadness in the boy’s one word, a weight that hovers in the air long after he’s spoken. Chrom ventures closer, a hand outstretched in invitation, in gratitude, but Marth recoils, takes two steps backwards before turning away and sprinting down the trail. 

“Wait! Come back!” Chrom calls.

Marth does not hear him. Instead, he runs at an even faster pace, the red of his cape aloft in the wind, until the whiteout eclipses him entirely.

“I…I wanted to thank him,” Chrom says, defeated. “He saved my life.”

“Need a little help there, Your Highness?”

Chrom swivels on his heels. The ruling Khan of Regna Ferox waits behind him, a full charge of soldiers at his back. A few are on horseback, and Chrom thinks of their own two horses, felled by the Risen and crushed under the wagon when it broke, and dread aches again in his stomach.

He pushes the thought down as quickly as it surfaced. “Khan Basilio!” he exclaims. “Gods, is this another ambush?”

“No, no. I’m here in good faith, Your Highness,” Basilio says, bowing. “The East Khan and I do play our games fair.”

“Ah. Well then. I’m sure you can see we’re in a bit of a predicament here.”

Chrom gestures to the half-burnt wagon, their provisions slung over the sides and pierced through with arrows, spilling flour and fruit and cartons of now-broken eggs onto the ground.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll have a few of my men salvage what they can of your foodstuffs, and in the meantime, the rest of us will escort you to the gate,” he says. When they all remain frozen, he lets out a chortle. “Come on, kids. This weather’s not getting any better.”

“Wait. Do you know if Emmeryn’s arrived yet?” Lissa pipes up.

“The Exalt and Knight Regent entered the city just as we left—all safe and sound. Flavia should be meeting them as we speak.”

Chrom breathes a sigh of relief, his shoulders slackening. “Oh, thank gods.”

“You should take that sword there, boy,” Basilio says. He gestures to a spot on the ground near Chrom’s feet. “Looks like it’s still in good shape.”

“Really?” Chrom remarks. He leans down and hoists Simia’s longsword into the air—pale light streams down the blade. It’s a beautiful thing, now that it’s not aimed at his heart, curving ever so slightly to a pin-sharp point.

“By the gods. This is Balmung,” Basilio mutters, his uncovered eye blown wide. “Did you get this off a Plegian soldier?”

“No. A Risen one,” says Chrom. “She called herself Simia, like one of the Twelve Deadlords. From the stories.”

“Oh, that was her alright. We know the Grimleal have been trying to raise the Deadlords for years. Seems they actually did it, then let them loose. Another one of their Grandmaster’s wild schemes, I’d guess.”

Chrom shivers. Is Robin really so powerful that she could raise the Deadlords? Was that the danger Tharja spoke of on that battlefield? And if it was, how did Robin let them get away?

All the questions make his head hurt. His grasp on Balmung weakens, and the glass-thin blade seesaws back and forth in the wind.

“Easy there, boy,” says Basilio, reaching for Balmung’s hilt. “I’ll take this for now, and you can tell me _all_ about your little adventure on our way to the city.”

+

Arena Ferox lies at the heart of the walled city of Colossea, an ancient fortress turned into a bustling nexus of trade and folly, one where houses and shops propagate among the old soldiers’ barracks, and the ancient stone fences of training grounds form the bounds of lively wet markets. The people here are undeterred by the snow and cold; they shuffle through the remnants of last night’s blizzard, carrying merchant’s wares and mutton sacks full of groceries, clothes, candles. Tens of languages coil together in the air, shouted across markets and thrown down alleyways. As Robin listens, she sieves the words she knows from them, pidgin eponyms for ‘bread’ and ‘money,’ or the North Feroxi word for ‘dogshit,’ which her soldiers toss around as a curse in code.

The snow was still falling when they arrived this morning, but now the sun breaks through the clouds in hard, bright strokes, setting diamond fire to the rooftops. She can see the Khans’ Union up ahead, the flags of each Feroxi region flown from its crenellated rooftops. With her lodgings in Basilio’s half of the Union compound, she’s already been there, but as soon as her things were in her room, she set out for a walk—a time to see the city as a traveler, the weight of duty traded for that of the fur cloak warming her shoulders.

Almost on instinct, Robin searches the crowds for a shimmer of deep cobalt, the ice-white steel of Naga’s Falchion peering out of a scabbard. Not that she wants to find Chrom, just yet. Rapt in the newness of the city, her muscles hardly ache for battle—but she keeps her Levin sword strapped to her hip, just in case.

She passes the guards at the Union gates and enters the courtyard, a sprawling labyrinth of evergreen hedges and high, cedarwood lattice that covers the pitch between Flavia’s quarterings and Basilio’s. The Khans’ other guests—diplomats from their representative regions, from Valm, from Ylisse—walk circles through the maze, engaged in lively conversation over steaming mugs of coffee and mulled cider. A few of them bow before Robin, knowing the rumors of a Plegian princess on the guest list, and she greets them with little more than a close-lipped smile, letting them revel in the mystery of her.

It isn’t until she’s alone that she realizes what’s happening, here in this unfamiliar world, with her father still a day’s worth of travel behind her.

She’s having _fun._

Only she’s not alone, after all. A small body slams her from the back, and every nerve in her body fires. She looks down, finding two thin, wool-covered arms locked around her stomach.

“Hi, Robin!” a young, familiar voice chirps against her back.

“Shh, keep it down,” Robin half-whispers, peeling herself from Anise’s grip. She grabs her by the wrist and guides her deeper into the courtyard, where trellises covered in brown, withered ivy shield them from view. “I’m not Robin.”

Anise purses her lips. “But—”

“Not right now.”

“Oh.”

“You will call me Princess Daraen,” she says. “As will everyone else. Including Prince Chrom.”

“But you’re not really a Princess.”

“I am, actually,” Robin corrects her, and she resents the way Anise’s eyes light up, so full of wonder and intrigue. “I suppose I’ve just never dressed like it, until now.” _Never been allowed,_ her thoughts chase, recalling the solstice holidays of her teenaged years, where she and Aversa were locked away with their Grimleal texts while the rest of the castle spun away in reverie. She’d wanted so badly to wear a ball gown, then, something light and airy and modest, dappled in just enough jewels to make her feel royal.

Everything is different, now. The Princess she might’ve been is a veneer for the General she’s become. The _Grandmaster._ Playing them all, sliding life after life along the chessboard of her mind, making every land and room and conversation into a battlefield.

“You look beautiful,” says Anise.

Robin shakes off her words. _Stupid girl._ “Don’t tell Chrom I’m here, alright? That Robin’s here. If you do, I can’t promise there won’t be consequences.”

Anise pinches two fingers together and makes a zipping motion over her mouth. “My lips are sealed, Princess Daraen.”

Before she can even think about it, Robin musses the top of Anise’s hair. “Now run along, alright? I’m sure your captain’s looking for you.”

“Oh, Captain Cordelia isn’t here. Lieutenant Sumia is, though! You’d like her. We all thought she was going to marry Prince Chrom, but now she’s dating one of his cavaliers. You…probably wouldn’t like _her,_ though. She’s kind of mean. But don’t tell anyone! That I said Sully’s mean, or that they’re dating. It’s kind of a secr—”

_“Anise.”_

“Right! Bye Ro—I mean, Princess Daraen. I’ll see you later!”

Robin struggles to contain her laughter as she walks back towards her quarters. Prince Chrom, getting married? She pities the poor Lieutenant for even having the option. He may be terribly good-looking, but the glamor is certainly lost the moment he opens his mouth.

Then again, if Robin has anything to do with it, the Prince of Ylisse won’t ever see his wedding day.

+

After a meeting with Flavia’s delegation, Chrom takes a walk alone in the courtyards, hoping to air his mind of their political drivel and half-formed tournament strategies. The sun has melted much of the snow from the pathways, and as he finds himself walking largely in puddles, he’s grateful for the waxy covering on the bottom of his shoes.

Without any politicians to listen to, his thoughts sink into memory, of a particular red cape curling away into the blizzard. Who was he, that gangly boy who called himself after the Hero-King? Was he one of Basilio’s men? Chrom made no mention of the encounter to the West Khan—the incident remained an unspoken secret between him and his traveling companions, as if they had all seen the same ghost—but it troubles him nonetheless, the fact that he knows nothing of the sullen, masked boy who saved him.

Tomorrow night, when they all gather at the Arena for the opening ceremonies—and the gala thereafter—he will ask Basilio if he knows of the soldier in the butterfly mask.

Something rustles on the other side of a nearby hedge, tearing Chrom from his pondering. He stops and peers through, but the needles are too densely packed for him to see anything but a flutter of dark color that disappears the moment he spots it.

“Long time no see, Blue.”

Chrom turns from the bush and breaks into a smile. “Gaius? By Naga’s breath, that really is you,” he says. “I’m on my way back to the Union—you should come for tea.”

“Thanks for the invite, but I was hoping to lie low for now,” Gaius says. He comes fully around the hedge, revealing a fleet of honey lollipops, probably stolen, strapped to the front of his vest. “Sorry, Your Highness.”

“It’s fine.” Chrom waves down the path. “Come on, catch me up. A little walk in the cold is good for the lungs.”

Gaius doesn’t budge. “Listen, I’m not really supposed to be on this side of the gardens, but I came here to give this to you.”

He pulls a sealed letter from a back pocket, the parchment well-wrinkled from travel.

Chrom takes his mail with an eager hand. “You’ve seen Robin again.”

“Yeah. Not too long ago, actually,” he says, adding a wink Chrom isn’t sure he wants to decipher. “Anyway, whatever’s in there must be important, seeing she sent me all the way to Ferox to take it to you.”

“Hold on—Robin _knows_ I’m in Ferox?”

“Word gets around, Blue. That’s how I found you the first time. Now we should get to discussing payment, because otherwise my nose is about to fall off.”

Chrom eyes the lollipops on his vest. “Money or sweets?”

“Between you and me, the money’s just going to sweets. So, you pick.”

“How honest of you to pay for something.”

Gaius taps his palm like he’s holding a pocket watch. “Time’s ticking away, Blue.”

Chrom digs around in his front pockets, then hands Gaius a few lint-crusted silver coins. “Here. There are plenty of pastry stalls around the Colossea Grand Market, but I’m sure you’ve already scoped them out,” he says. Gaius takes the money, but doesn’t close his hand. Only stares at a spot near Chrom’s hip. “Is something wrong?”

“No. I’m just marveling the fact that those ridiculous pants have pockets.”

Chrom rolls his eyes. “ _Goodbye_ , Gaius.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you, Blue,” he says, stuffing the money where Robin’s letter had been. “Maybe sooner rather than later.”

Chrom doesn’t get the chance to ask him what he means; he ducks behind the hedge again and jogs away, his bootsteps making hard splashes on the wet cobblestones.

“I make too much work for him,” Chrom mutters, settling into a trellised corner where no one can peek over his shoulder. _But it’s worth it._ Going back and forth and Robin is much easier with their own personal messenger.

Once Chrom is sure there are no more passersby, he pops open the flap and unravels the letter.

_Chrom,_

_The last words of your previous letter seemed so terribly final, I had no choice but to write you back and continue my pestering. I hope that doesn’t impede you this “challenge” of yours, which you claim will supernaturally make you stronger for winning. If it wasn’t clear, I remain skeptical of such brazen declarations._

_I am gone again from Plegia, but before I left, our Valentian orange trees at the palace had just begun to fruit. The land there is largely barren, as you know, but we’ve managed a few spare plots around the capital, mostly for stone fruit and date trees. But the oranges? The oranges are special. They only bloom every few years and bear their fruits all the fewer—when they do, it is considered a sign of great fortune in our nation. We harvest their pulp for the winter solstice, feed the skins to our lambs before we bleed them. In the Orange Winters, Plegia awakens, the desert light at its darkest, and it is under that same thin sun our blades will meet._

_Oh my—I hope I have not scared you, Chrom. I just thought you should know what you’re up against. Besides me, of course._

_Take care of your sword, and yourself. I don’t want to be disappointed._

_Sincerely,_

_Robin_

Chrom twists his lips and racks his brain. Robin’s threatening is not merely that—she is telling him a story, offering a piece of herself, and now he must offer one in return.

His mouth straightens into a smile. He knows what he’ll do.

He’ll tell her about the ghost.

+

Robin returns from her morning training with sweat salt frozen on her skin, her cheeks colored in a flush not even the worst Plegian summer could draw from them. There is a fire blazing high in her bedroom hearth, and with her blood still pounding in her veins—half from the rush of sparring at swordpoint, and half at the thought of stumbling into her nemesis at any moment—the heat is at once inviting and too much to bear. She quickly shucks off her layers and sprawls herself on the hardwood floor, cooling her sore muscles while tipping her cold-rimed face towards the fireplace.

Her rooms in the West Khan’s wing of the compound are delightfully spare: solid-color beds and furnishings, unornate windows full of frost and light, delicate Chon’sinese artworks on the walls. It is the attendants, all the maids and valets and pages that pass in and out of her room, bringing reed-paper notices and fresh tea, that are the strangest to her. Even now as she lays about the floor, stripped to her tank top and bloomers, there is a maid running her a bath with scented oils, another fussing about her borrowed gowns, looking for the right one for her lunch with the Khan and his champion. 

She draws herself from the floor and tugs her bathrobe over her shoulders. According to the rumors floating about the compound, the Khan’s champion is an Ylissean boy—not Chrom, but someone younger, a teenager. Robin wonders idly if he was once one of the Prince’s ‘Shepherd’ warriors, or an immigrant to Ferox, making a name for his prowess in a theater other than war.

There’s something wonderful about this place, though. The way stories cross and coalesce, the way a time of merriment and competition reaches across borders, joins unlikely hands. Perhaps Robin will even like this young Ylissean boy.

Perhaps she can make an ally of him.

A knock at the door draws her from her thoughts. She ties the sash of her robe and calls through the wood, “Who is it?”

“Hi, Lady Robin!” Henry chirps on the other side. “Can Tharja and I come in?”

Robin opens the door. Her retainers are bundled in winter furs, likely on their way for a walk to the market. “Make it quick, please. I’m about to get in the bath.”

As Henry funnels inside, he gives Robin a sniff. “Nya-ha. You are a little sweaty.”

“That’s what happens when you spend the morning sparring with Feroxi myrmidons,” Robin replies. “What’s going on?”

“We saw the Khan on our way here,” Tharja explains. “He’s canceled the luncheon.”

“What?” Robin exclaims.

Tharja nods. “He said he received an urgent call from outside the city and had to attend to it. More travelers stranded by the blizzard. His champion went with him.”

“How disappointing,” Robin says, and though her body is too tired for enthusiasm, she means it. Her curiosity has been burning all day, both about Basilio’s champion, and how the boy intends to defeat his Prince.

A flash of red pulls Robin’s gaze to the hallway. Approaching them is another one of the pages, dressed in shades of brown save a bright crimson plume flying from the side of his cap. He pushes a thin envelope towards Robin.

“This came for you, Princess.”

Robin takes the letter with a flutter in her pulse. She recognizes the envelope, the creamy, off-white parchment and night-colored strokes, but the _Princess Daraen_ on the front is penned in a wholly unfamiliar hand. Just as garish and practiced as Chrom’s, but the curves etch a different voice, a restraint she knows he lacks.

The attendant exits, the feather on his cap bobbing as he walks, and Robin opens the letter.

_To the Concern of Her Eminence, Princess Daraen of the Western Coast of Plegia:_

_What fortune it is we’d finally cross paths. I have yearned to parlay with a Plegian ambassador since before the war began between our nations, and am grateful I may yet have the chance to do so, now. Talk among the nobles is here is that you are kind and peace-minded, as well as quite lovely, and I would be honored to see as much for myself._

_Consider this a formal invitation to tea with me in my chambers. You are welcome to bring any number of witnesses, but do know I have no intention of maligning you. This is to be a diplomatic talk, and perhaps, by the end of it, one of friendship._

_Should you accept my invitation, I will send my trusted Sir Frederick to retrieve you at noon tomorrow. Be well, Princess._

_In Naga’s Name and Light,_

_Exalt Emmeryn of Ylisse_

“Is that from—” Henry starts.

“No,” Robin cuts him off. She paces over to her makeshift desk, where a chaos of maps new and old lies in overlap on the wood. “It’s from his sister. The Exalt. She wants to meet me, meet _Daraen_ , tomorrow.”

Henry and Tharja follow her. “Oh, you have to go, Lady Robin,” says Henry. “That’s your perfect chance to learn more about Chrom.”

“What about the _war,_ Henry?” Tharja snaps.

“Tharja’s right. If Exalt Emmeryn is really so trusting, I should be able to pry some information out of her. Perhaps the depth of the Ylissean arsenal, or if they plan to divide their forces to two fronts again,” Robin explains, more to herself than to Henry and Tharja. She sets a hand on her map of Colossea, subconsciously drawing a line from Arena Ferox to the southern gate. “Then again, that only works if Chrom is returning to battle after the tournament—which I may have a hand in stopping.”

“You’re saying, if you’re right—killing Chrom could end the war?” Tharja asks.

“Not end it, no,” Robin says. Her mind fills with blood and sand, armored bodies spilling through the finger-gaps of mountains, a retreating wave of Ylissean gold. “But it could certainly give us a clear path to victory.”

Robin presses her hand into the map, as if she could push her worries through it like a burst of _Elfire_. “Still, Father and Gangrel won’t be satisfied without the Emblem and its jewels. We could make it a condition of surrender, but the blood of their men is already such a steep price to pay.”

“Why don’t you use the Exalt’s trust to get the Emblem’s location?” Tharja suggests.

“Because I don’t have it, yet. But I will earn it. Quickly,” Robin says. Her gaze settles on the arena, the perfect circle of it on the page. “And when I slay her brother here in Ferox, I hope she knows it was me.

"I hope she knows why it had to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, I said we wouldn't be seeing lucina and morgan for a while, but I didn't say anything about "marth"...
> 
> I hope you all liked this chapter! next chapter, which I hope to have up by next weekend--but I have a project deadline coming up quick, is my absolute favorite so far and I can't wait to get it in your hands. so visit me on twitter @lumailia and tell me to write!!! love y'all and have a wonderful turkey day if you're celebrating~


	11. CHAPTER TEN: Trust and Tribulation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hurrah! it's the first anniversary of the first chapter of this fic, so happy birthday letters! I don't think I'll reach my twelve chapter goal in two days, but that just means more content in 2021. anyway, without further ado, another chapter of curious letters. and let me just say...I think you've been waiting for this one ;)

CHAPTER TEN: _Trust and Tribulation_

+

As Exalt Emmeryn promised, Sir Frederick collects Robin at noon on the dot. He is an imposing grizzly of a man, dressed in blue and silver armor without a single crack in its polish. Were he not so stern-looking, his brows pulled to harsh angles above his eyes, she might find him handsome. Charming, even, by the way his dark, wavy hair is haloed in a few twists of frizz, unused to the dryness in the air.

He does not bow, but she would not expect that of him. His allegiance is to the Ylissean Crown, not the golden eyes that rest above her own, digging faint pricks of red into her skin.

“Good day, Princess,” he says. His voice is low and firm—it matches him.

“Sir Frederick, I take it?” Robin asks.

He nods. “Milady the Exalt has asked me to escort you to her suite.”

“Then lead the way,” says Robin, gesturing to the hall. “I look forward to seeing the East Khan’s side of our accommodations.”

Frederick winces, and Robin realizes it’s the word _our_ that’s stung him, the way she’s dared to group the two of them, a Plegian princess and an Ylissean knight, under one possessive. It is a deep wound for so small a word—it speaks to the power of them.

Things quiet between them. They walk out into the courtyard, and Frederick chooses the path around the gardens. It will snow for tonight’s opening ceremonies, they say, but this morning, the sun is burning through a sheet of white clouds, giving way to opaline flecks of blue.

“Is the Western half of Plegia so barren as its East?” Frederick asks as they cross a small bridge over a dried-up canal.

“There is much green where I come from on the coast,” Robin replies. She envisions the thumb-sized illustrations in her atlases and histories, ones of people bent over in a verdant mire marsh grass, of gloved hands pulling fish and crabs from the brackish. “But there is too much salt in the soil to grow anything we might eat.”

“You may not believe it, Princess, but Ylisse was once a hungry country. It certainly was when I was a young boy living in the mountains,” he says. “Exalt Emmeryn has done much to fix that. I am lucky to have grown up in her service.”

“Why are you indulging me in a story, Sir Frederick?” Robin asks. “You seem much more the ‘brooding in silence’ type.”

“I am not telling you any sort of story. I simply want you to know your enemy as they really are—not as your King’s rabid cult tells you they should be.”

She stiffens, though it’s better Ylisseans think Gangrel is the Grimleal mastermind, and not her father. “Do you feel wronged, Sir Frederick?”

“You recall it was King Gangrel’s army invaded us without warrant, and not the reverse,” he says. “Though, I surmise someone else was pulling at the strings.” 

_Your Grandmaster._ It goes unspoken, but Robin feels it in the acid of his tone, so caustic it burns her skin. She doesn’t know whether to swell with pride or wither like a moonflower in high sun. It was foolish declaring war so early. She knows it was. But Gangrel would always have his way. By his pen, her plans. By her plans, the blades of thousands of men, rushing into a war that would be an infernal trial to win.

But Robin was born for trial. The only reason her father tests her so often, plunges her into battles of poison and fire and wits, is because she cannot bring about their ruin if she has never felt it for herself.

“If it is secrets you want from me, Sir Frederick, I’m afraid I have none to give,” she tells the Knight. “I am only the Princess of a far-flung duchy; my voice is quite small in the League. I am here for no reason other than to represent my people.”

“Then you and Her Grace should have much to talk about.”

They enter the Eastern side of the compound to find it much like the Western—dark drapes, airy décor, simple furnishings. The decorations must be of some historical value, she thinks, curated by a single discerning eye. Frederick stops her on the second floor, where a protrusion of painted screens cleverly hides the alcove entry to a suite.

Frederick brings a fist to the door. “Your Grace? I’ve brought her.”

The doors open, and Exalt Emmeryn herself stands in the threshold. She is as radiant as the stories say, her gold-spun hair draped into two perfect drills over her shoulders. Her dress is spun from creamy wool, each sleeve hemmed in a froth of white fur. A green stole bearing magic sigils—ancient numbers, one for each major tome of the Upper Incantation—falls loose about her shoulders.

The Exalt smiles, waving him and Robin inside.

“Exalt Emmeryn, may I present the ambassador from the Plegian League, Princess Daraen of the Western Coast,” Frederick says. He makes a wide gesture towards Robin, but there’s a stiffness to it.

As custom, Robin kneels at the Exalt’s feet, and she bows in return, her halo crown catching a swoop of pale winter sunlight. 

“That will be all, Frederick.”

Frederick arches his eyebrow, and Robin feels a peculiar flash of worry. But Lady Emmeryn is immune—she shoos him out the door like a child might a nosy parent, her bone-thin arms delivering a surprisingly hefty push to his back.

The door clicks closed, and Emmeryn resumes her place before Robin.

“Do stand, Mage Grandmaster. I intend to speak to you as my equal.”

Robin doesn’t; shock rivets her to the floor. “How did you—”

“I saw you in the courtyards, speaking to your guardsmen. It reminded me of…another commander I know,” she says. “And I’ve heard women don’t last long in the Plegian League—yet Her Eminent Shadow seems to endure.”

Robin rises, stirred by the sound of her title on the Exalt’s tongue, the way it is not cajoling or mocking, but reverent. Deep with respect.

“Come, sit down,” says Emmeryn. She motions to a wooden tea table near the foot of the guestroom bed. “Tea is in the pot there, and I’ve ordered some cakes and sandwiches I hope will be to your liking. I’ve looked forward to speaking with you alone for a while, now.”

Robin joins her at the table, though they’re hardly alone. Another guard, clothed in the billowy pants and gold-plated armor of an Ylissean Pegasus Knight, sits on the side of the bed, a whetstone and lance in hand.

Emmeryn notices Robin’s drifting gaze and grins, her green eyes crimped to perfect crescents. “You don’t mind Phila here, do you?” she asks. “She’s my wife—not a guard.”

Phila drags the whetstone up her lance-point. “In this moment, I’d consider myself both.”

“That won’t be necessary, my heart,” the Exalt tells the guard—her _wife,_ The Knight Regent of Ylisse _._ As much as it grates against her instincts, Robin indulges a flurry of joy for them. “This is a diplomatic talk. Right, Grandmaster?”

Robin nods. “As was agreed to.”

“I’d hoped you’d tell me about your life in Plegia. I haven’t been there since I was newly crowned.”

“You invite the tactician of your enemy’s army to tea and the first thing you ask her is about her _life_?”

She pours Robin a cup of tea—something soft and flowery, with a warm curl of spice. It smells wonderful, but Robin knows better than to drink it, despite Emmeryn’s promise of benign intentions. “We are people before our titles.”

“Well, if you insist, Your Grace, it’s excessively dull when there’s not a war going on,” Robin says, which somehow draws another laugh from the Exalt. “I don’t leave the palace much, but to tend to my troops.”

“Something of a gilded cage, isn’t it?” Emmeryn muses.

“Hardly gilded,” Robin says, perhaps too quickly. Castle Plegia is a cage, but it is not made of gold; it is made of stone, and iron, and the rot-black viscera of a beast that will one day consume her from the inside out.

Emmeryn takes a sip of tea. “Would you do anything about that?”

“There are riches other than gold, Your Grace.”

“You know what I meant,” says Emmeryn. “Let us speak of your King. Gangrel. His bloodlust is not a strategy—as I understand, the army stays afloat by your battleplans. And your father, the Duke, Leader of the Grimleal. There are no stories of his power. But I have heard the stories of yours. You could unseat them both in one blow. So, why haven’t you?” 

Robin grits her teeth. This is her enemy—perhaps a greater one than Chrom. She will not tell her of the nights she’s dreamt of drowning her father in _Thoron’_ s light, or thought of slicing Gangrel’s throat with the very sword he gifted her, or spent her midmorning prayers wishing them both to the grave.

Instead, she will tell her why she knows better.

“The people need their king, and a faith needs its prophet,” she says. “Who am I to deprive them? Besides—we are a country at war. People are hungry, uncertain. They are not ready for the upheaval that is a Queen.”

The Exalt nods. “I understand.”

“What of your father, then? The Ravager Exalt, Alechsander,” Robin counters. “He tortured my people. Called them infidels, savages. Slayed more innocents than fighting men. Was there nothing you could have done to unseat _him_?”

“I believe in peace.”

“Yet just a moment ago, you were stoking me to regicide.” 

“Perhaps I see in you a strength I did not have.”

Silence gels between them. With mere a smile and an untouched cup, she has reached through the cracks in her armor and broken it like the black lacquer shell of a scarab, baring Robin for all that she is.

“I want to end this war, Grandmaster,” says the Exalt. “And very soon. Before it grows into something none of us can control.”

“You should pass that along to your brother. He clearly has no qualms about following in the Ravager’s footsteps.”

Emmeryn tenses, a ripple in her calm. “Chrom is nothing like our father,” she says. “He is…passionate, angry at times, but he wants peace as much as you and I.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“He’s here, you know. Likely at the training grounds. I could arrange a meeting between the two of you, though I’m afraid Frederick and Phila would have to supervise.”

A _shing_ of metal sluices across the room—Phila narrows her eyes at Robin.

“I have no wish to see Prince Chrom,” Robin says. “And if we do cross paths, I…well, I won’t be so amiable with him as I am with you.”

“That’s a shame. I see much of the same fire in you two. Nonetheless, I’d like to talk again with you, someday.”

Robin bristles, curling her fists in her skirts. “I can’t make any promises.”

“But would you like to?” Emmeryn asks, leaning closer. She takes a sip of her tea; it says _trust me. Help me find another way._

Robin can’t. Not as much as she wishes she could, not as much as she’d like to wedge an unending sea between their countries and drown their needless war in its tide. But she tells her yes, she’d speak to her again, if only to keep Ylissean eyes off her back.

+

By the time she returns the west side of the compound, Robin is sweating under her cloak. The sun has pierced the clouds in bright, decisive rays, and her blood is still pounding from Emmeryn’s words.

The low entry stairs are clouded in a mass of black and gold armor—her father’s retinue. She tamps down her dread and marches up the stairs as the soldiers part, revering their Grandmaster with a bow. The only one who does not move is Validar, halfway inside before the sudden rustle of armor stills him.

“Master Validar! When did you arrive?” Robin asks.

Her father turns. “Not an hour ago.” He descends through the flanks of soldiers, waving them away. “I sent for you, but your little retainers told me you’d gone out. Care to tell me where?”

“Just to the other side of the compound,” Robin answers, unwavering. “I wanted to see how Khan Flavia decorated.”

“Pithy. You don’t care for such things.”

“This is all very different for me,” she insists, gesturing to the building behind them, the snow hiding un-melted in the shadows of the awning. “Surely you don’t fault my curiosity.”

Validar nods towards the open doors. “Come inside. I’ve brought something for you.”

Robin follows him up the stairs and through the coffee-colored halls of the west compound’s mezzanine, around to the backstair. His chambers are on the third floor, facing out to the gardens. It’s a terrible view to waste on someone who will only keep the windows drawn.

Two soldiers close the doors on them, and Robin follows him through the maze of his belongings to his window-side desk.

He inspects the wood with a blood-black fingernail. “You’ll be attending the opening ceremonies tonight, correct?” he asks her.

“Of course, I will,” she says, schooling the excitement out of her voice. He doesn’t need to know that she’s been looking forward to all the music and dance, the acrobats twirling lances helmed in fire.

“Good. There’ll be a gala to follow on the arena floor—you’ll use that time to scope the way into the underbelly,” Validar says. “Perhaps you could find yourself a guide.”

“A guide?”

“Oh, Robin. For a girl with the blood of hundreds on her hands, you really are naïve,” he says. “Simply ask some Feroxi soldier boy to take a walk, show you around, maybe find someplace secret. He’d be a fool not to oblige a _Princess._ ”

“You’re talking to the wrong daughter,” Robin snaps. “I’ll find my own way in.”

Her father laughs her off, finishing his march around the desk and depositing himself in the high-backed chair. The sunlight pouring through the windows turns him to nothing but a feather-edged shadow.

“What was it you wanted to give me again?” Robin presses.

He stretches his arm across the table, then slides a discreet glass vial from the flute of his sleeve and into Robin’s hand. She rolls it around in the hollow of her palm—the dark violet liquid takes on no light.

“It’s a sleeping hex,” Validar explains. “Once you have Gules in hand, break the glass against the ground to cover your exit. You’ll have around five minutes to escape before it reaches you. Anyone pursuing you will be plunged into weeks of nightmare-addled sleep.”

Robin pinches the vial at its neck and swirls its contents. “Well, that’s unpleasant.”

“Need you be so dry?”

“Blame the dresses—I can’t take anything seriously when I’m dressed like a pastry,” she says. “But I am rather thirsty, actually.”

Validar gestures to the door. “Go on, then. And keep that somewhere safe.”

Robin closes her fist around the vial. “I will. Don’t worry.”

“I never worry about you,” he says, and in his warmthless tone, there lies the unspoken: _Because I do not care._

+

When Robin returns to her chambers, Henry is curled up by the window, watching some little black bird peck in vain at the glass, and Tharja lies on her bed, idly thumbing through a tome. They both stand at attention as Robin moves into the room.

“How did it go?” Henry chirps.

Robin doesn’t say anything. She wants to tell them the truth, but worries someone outside could be listening.

Tharja takes her silence as bad news. She comes closer, places a hand on her cheek. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“Not at all,” Robin says. “The Exalt and Knight Regent were as kind and inviting as expected.”

Henry wiggles his eyebrows. “Was _Prince Chrom_ there?”

“I didn’t come back covered in blood, now, did I?” Robin teases.

“Ah, on that note—Gaius came by while you were gone,” Tharja says, stepping back. Robin doesn’t miss the way her face sours. “There’s a letter for you on the desk.”

It’s almost embarrassing, how quickly Robin grabs the letter from where it rests among her maps and missives.

_Dear Robin,_

_Do you believe in ghosts? I do. I think they’re everywhere. The dead watch us—sometimes, I think they judge us more harshly than Naga herself._

_If you’ll oblige me, Grandmaster, let me tell you a ghost story. It begins with myself and my retinue in the woods, and ends with a phantom blade through the gut of Simia, Bearer of Balmung. What happens in between is inconsequential—I am more concerned with the after, in which the ghost that saves my life leaves me with only his name and the grim declaration that he comes from a place of ruin. He wears the halidom’s colors, and he calls himself after the Hero King, Marth. He is young, and strange, and yet I feel as if I’ve met him before. Or perhaps, I am meant to know him, someday. Regardless, the memory will not leave me._

_I wonder what you’d make of such an encounter. I wonder if you’ll even believe me at all. Perhaps in your next letter, you could tell me. Maybe offer your own story in return._

_Unfortunately, I find myself with little time to write, so I will leave you for now._

_Stay well, and sharp be your blade,_

_Chrom_

“Oh, he is the dumbest man on this gods-forsaken earth,” Robin mumbles.

Tharja rolls her eyes. “And what else has he done to prove that?”

“He met another sword-slinging Ylissean boy in the woods and thinks it was a ghost, when it was clearly Basilio’s champion” she says. “Seems the boy must have a penchant for throwing himself into Risen-infested woods.”

Robin trawls the paragraph again, and this time, it is not amusement that fills her, but horror. “Wait. _Simia, Bearer of Balmung…_ could the Deadlords have really made it this far North?”

“Beats me,” says Henry.

“Well, it’s not like they have to eat, or sleep,” Tharja offers. “They’re dead.”

A pearl of sweat slides down Robin’s temple. “Then they could truly be anywhere. Regna Ferox, Plegia, Ylisse—only the gods know what kind of havoc they’re wreaking.”

_Relish this,_ a voice whispers within her, dark and bubbling like acid. _This is the chaos you long for. Let the pain till the earth for our harvest of ruin._

Robin shoves her head in her palms, smothering the voice, twisting her fingers against the bruise-ache of her Brand.

“Father…what have you done?”

+

By midafternoon, the snow-clouds return from the North, and a raw, wet chill blusters its way through the city. Chrom is grateful when his walk with Khan Flavia takes them back indoors, into the firelit expanse of her study. Her bookshelves shoulder more weapons than books, but in the moment, it’s the encompassing warmth, smudging the cold out of his cheeks, that he admires the most.

She seats him in a plain chair across her desk and offers him a cup of hot mulled wine. He declines pleasantly—they have business to attend to, and there will be plenty of drink to go around at the gala, tonight.

Flavia opens the top drawer of her desk. “I’ll tell you the truth, Chrom—there’s a lot I can do for you,” she says. “But I can only do it if you win.”

Chrom nods. “I understand.”

“Here are my terms,” Flavia says, unrolling a long parchment scroll between them. “In my first measure as ruling Khan, I’ll establish a formal wartime alliance between Regna Ferox and Ylisse. We’ll be able to supply you with men and munitions, but we would like to see an increase in the foodstuffs trade on your end.”

“Emmeryn can arrange that,” he says.

“Very good,” she says. “And Ferox will get a cut of the victors’ spoils?”

“We’ll negotiate that when the time comes,” he says. _If we win the war,_ his thoughts chase. “But there will be a boon—I promise that much.”

“You make good promises, Princeling.”

“And I intend to deliver.”

Flavia rerolls her terms and hands them over to Chrom—he deposits the scroll in his lap, a bit unsure of what else to do with it.

“I’m sure you know our dearest Khan Basilio has been consorting with the Plegians,” Flavia continues, taking a sip of her wine. “Diplomatically, I mean. If it were another kind of consorting, with _anyone,_ he’d be hearing from me.”

“I…did not know this.”

“That’s right. So, don’t let his choice of an Ylissean champion fool you. You’re only getting help in this war if you win tomorrow night.”

Chrom tenses his fists, crackling the roll of parchment between them. “We’ll win,” he assures her. “The tournament, and the war.”

+

The opening ceremonies begin with a song Robin once heard in a dream—either a dream, or a memory long out of reach, like a smooth, oiled jewel that keeps slipping through her fingers. She does not understand the language, but the melody calls to her, rivets her somewhere out of space and time and body, far from the crowded stands of Arena Ferox.

As the music changes, and Robin comes back to earth, a troupe of dancers dressed in scant, gauzy costumes comes leaping to the center of the floor. They whirl about with silk-draped rings in their hands, clanging them together on the beat, drumming up the rest of the instruments. At the front of them, a dancer dressed in white—the only one, a swan among cardinals and jays—leads with inimitable grace. From Robin’s arena-side seat, she can see the lead dancer is undeniably beautiful, her pink hair flowing behind her in a regal plume. Yet even with her beauty, not once does she turn her eyes on the audience.

She is scared, Robin realizes. The crowd is her greatest fear, and yet she commands it with fluid ease, drawing every eye to her dance.

They are much alike, to that end. Robin worries ceaselessly that her ruse will crumble, that there are a hundred clever Emmeryns in the compound, but even as a princess, she is a strategist, and she will bend every half-drunken soul in this arena to her will, if she must—Prince Chrom, included.

Robin almost misses the dancers when they’re gone. She watches the rest of the ceremony unfurl in a listless haze, paying only idle attention to the theatrical performances and soaring battle hymns—even the fire-lancers draw little excitement from her. Her thoughts are racing, now, and she must attend to them.

It is only when Khan Basilio and Khan Flavia take to the center of the arena that she returns to the present. Flavia introduces Basilio as the ruling Khan, bidding everyone to stand from their seats and bow. Then, Basilio steps forward and announces his champion.

Robin was right. His champion is Marth, Chrom’s bespoken ghost, a lean, blue-clothed waif of a boy, his eyes hidden behind a mask wrought in the shape of a butterfly. As Basilio’s half of the audience cheers for him, he remains stoic and unmoving. One gloved hand curls the hilt of his sword, and when Robin squints, she can see that it’s shaking.

But she, too, is shaking. She knows what comes next. Flavia will introduce her own champion, and Robin will be mere feet from the man she’s sworn time and again to kill.

At the sound of his name and title, Prince Chrom of Ylisse bursts forth from the crowd and bounds across the arena floor, his cape flowing a white, tattered banner behind him. Robin digs her nails into her pants—the pressure leaves dark crescent moons in the silk.

Chrom greets both Marth and Basilio before embracing Flavia, then turning out to the audience.

The man behind her letters, her nemesis, her fated prey, is right in front of her, and to Robin’s lurid horror, he is as devastating as his miniature portrayed. Perhaps more so, with the way he beams at the crowd, flashing a toothy, roguish smile that would look like certain heartbreak if he weren’t so earnest. Instead, he is warmth, and light, and hope, and Robin wants to reach inside his ribs and crush the life from him.

She feels suddenly lightheaded, and it dawns on her that she hasn’t taken a breath since Flavia called his name.

Chrom’s gaze roves the stands, and Robin’s pulse leaps into her throat. This is too dangerous. Surely, they will meet eyes, and he will know from one glance at her that she is not Princess Daraen, but Robin, the Grandmaster, and he will draw his sword on her while she has no weapon to her person but a tiny emerald dagger.

She must go. Now. And if she is to face him again tonight, it will be only when she has the power of her words—her _lies_ —to still his sword.

+

It isn’t right to take congratulations for a battle one hasn’t yet won—but Flavia’s supporters foist their praise on Chrom, anyway, shoving him around with pats on the back and boisterous cheers. A few sling mud at his opponent, and Chrom is quick to worm out of their way, not wishing any ill will on the boy he’ll face tomorrow night.

Really, he just wants to thank the kid—who is very much alive, to his relief—for saving him properly. But just as he did in the woods, Marth has slipped away.

Maybe Chrom should do the same. Even with the cold air overhead, the first flurries of snow drifting down from the dark of the sky, the arena floor is stifling. He could go for something to eat, but there are too many people crowding the tables with the food, and he has no desire to go pushing them out of the way.

So he walks. Past the Khans, past the throngs of wine-drunk nobles in their furs, past his sisters and Phila and Frederick, until the crowd tapers off and the fires blaze without shadows, and there is nothing between him and the fresh air but a young woman in violet. 

Chrom stops in his tracks. For one fierce, horrible second, he sees her silver-white hair, her Plegian dress, and wonders if it’s _her._ If the time has come, here and now. But she can’t be. This woman is far too beautiful to be Robin. The firelight molds to her features like liquid gold: her eyes are a honeyed amber, her skin the soft, bronzy color of rain-cooled sand. She wears a look of gentle surprise, and as he finally musters a step towards her, she takes one in turn, the space between them a meager eternity, a bridge between lives he knows were destined to meet.

He is wordless before her, if only for the way he yearns first to hear her voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAA I love you all see you in january :)))))))


	12. CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Cry and the Echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooo getting this January chapter right under the wire! I'm shooting for Chapter 13 on the 28th of Feb, then maybe 2 chapters in March or April, but we'll see. I've got full-time and freelance work now so I'm pretty busy!! I hope you enjoy the chapter!!! I'm sorry it's so long but you know me...can't pass up a good swordight scene...

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: _The Cry and the Echo_**

+

Robin clenches her jaw to keep it from falling clean off her skull. All she had wanted was a little air, a moment to compose herself. Maybe a peek at the entry to the arena’s underbelly, if she were lucky enough to squint its shape from the dark. Instead, she got only stern looks from the guards and snow making a wet kohl mess around her eyes and now, in her fruitless retreat, too little space between herself and the man she’s declared her greatest enemy.

At first, all she can do is stare at him. She ventures an unconscious step forward, wondering if he is nothing more than an illusion of her nerves, a desert mirage that shatters with nearness. But this is not the desert, and it is truly Chrom standing before her, stock-still and solid and meticulously shadowed, his lips parted around a tiny, perfect darkness of words yet unsaid. 

“Am I in your way?” Robin asks him, because she is unarmed, and must steer him away as quickly as possible. Any longer in his presence, and the magic in her veins will unchain itself in sharp-toothed rage, the sort that cares little for ink-and-parchment truces.

But damn him, his features only warm, his eyes taking a shimmer. “Not at all,” he says. His voice is deep, muscled with conviction; it is a hundred hammers striking divots in the iron of her bones. “Are you cold?”

“The contrary, actually,” Robin assures him, nodding to the fires gesticulating in their braziers.

Chrom scratches the back of his neck, his eyes—a dark, impossible blue—briefly darting to his feet. “My apologies, then, it’s just…you have snow in your hair.”

Now she is the one locked in open-mouthed silence. She fingers a strand of her hair, finding whiter flakes melting slowly in the arena’s heat. “I suppose I do.”

The Prince sticks out a gloved hand for her to shake. It is much larger than hers; _he_ is much larger than her, and that could be a problem in battle.

“I’m Chrom,” he says.

“You would introduce yourself so plainly, Your Highness?”

“Well, if we’re keeping score, you’ve yet to introduce yourself, at all.”

Robin chokes back a bile-swell of disgust and shakes his hand. He must be trained in firmness and surety, to squeeze the knuckle bones as a promise of his strength. She is glad not to touch his skin.

“Princess Daraen of the Western Coast,” Robin says, displeased at how the lie stutters off her tongue, as if it’s forgotten all its weeks in rehearsal, the way it spooled out like warm honey before the mirror. “Of Plegia, that is. Though I’m sure you could tell as much.”

“Delighted, Princess.” He releases her hand and points a finger between her eyes. “But I’ll admit, the crown gave you away.”

Robin grinds her jaw so hard it pops. The absolute _nerve_ of him. How could he look into the Eyes of Grima and show no fear? Does he not see all of Plegia as the enemy? Should the sight of their Princess not fetter his heart with dread?

She cools herself quickly—calm subsumes her, sealing the fractures in her guise. “Shouldn’t you be off to bed, Your Highness? You have quite the battle tomorrow.”

“I appreciate the concern, but rest assured, I have plenty of stamina,” he says, and Robin grimaces, because gods if that doesn’t sound like some ridiculous line he’d write to her. “Would you like to come dance with us, Princess? I promise, I won’t overdo it.”

Robin has to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. This poor boy hasn’t the slightest idea who she is. Perhaps he plans to wield so much against her, to flaunt the way he danced with one of her royals, only for it to have been Robin herself spinning in his arms, his strong hands guiding her by waist and shoulder.

The thought sends a heat-lightning jolt up her spine. She won’t give him such satisfaction—and she certainly won’t spend her night scrubbing off the ashes of his touch.

“I’m afraid I have to decline,” she says. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Prince Chrom, but I must be going.”

His smile drops, but there is no dejection or sadness on his face. Only warm understanding, a tenderness that is all too soft for a conqueror. “Very well, Princess. You have a good night.”

Robin takes a sharp turn away from him, but she knows his eyes linger on her, his attention scalding like a brand down her back. She purges herself of him, channels her focus into weaving the gaps between dancing, sweating bodies, evading the trains of cloaks and dresses. Yet as she combs the crowd for Henry and Tharja, she is burdened with the thought of her true name on the Prince’s tongue, spoken with that same earnest grit he gave to _Daraen_. Only this time, there is blood streaked between his teeth. This time, there is rage and steel and justice, and it ends with her blade like lightning in his heart.

+

Chrom should have slept better, and the throbbing ache behind his left eye is sure to remind of it. But there was far too much keeping him awake. The thought of his distant war, and the soldiers he’s left without their general. Of Marth, who continues to elude him, refusing to be anything more than a memory amid snow and cinders. Of Princess Daraen, with her silvered-bone hair and eyes like crystal fire, a shimmering lure that reels him from the blurry edge of sleep.

He needs to see her again. If she knows Robin, perhaps he can winnow some information out of her, a spare fraying thread he can chase to Robin’s end. He spends the better part of the morning thinking of what to write the Princess, and when he finally pulls himself from bed, the sky is the color of old candlewax and his morning tea has gone cold out in the drawing room.

Chrom pours himself a cup and heats it over a candle flame. His schedule looms on the corner of the table, sticking out from beneath the silver lip of the tea tray. He has a shard of time for himself this morning, but after that it’s a brief training, final meetings with Flavia, and then, come nightfall, the tournament.

A rush of anticipation tenses his muscles—he clenches his cup so hard the blue porcelain handle nearly cracks.

He sets it down gingerly, like he’s wounded it, and a servant comes in with his breakfast. Frederick trails her, his hands tucked behind his back; not in his usual uptight manner, but pointedly so, as if he means to conceal something. Chrom watches him with narrowed eyes as he maneuvers around the servant, keeping his clasped hands fully out of Chrom’s view. The servant leaves him a tray of fried dough and clotted cream and thick slabs of bacon, and even as he thanks her, he does not steal his gaze from Frederick.

When Frederick speaks, his voice is laced with agitation. “Good morning, milord.”

“Likewise, Frederick,” Chrom says. He lifts his knife and smears a petal of cream on the dough. “I feel like you’re hiding something from me.”

“Not hiding, milord. Simply waiting.”

The drawing room door clicks shut.

“I was asked to give something to you,” Frederick says. “Don’t worry, I’ve fully vetted it for poisons, hexes, needles, diseased scabs, jagged pebbles—anything that might inflict a wound upon Your Highness.”

Chrom flinches. “You opened it.”

“For your safety, milord. As always,” he says. “Still, I don’t recommend you reading it until after the tournament.”

“Please, Frederick. You can’t just come in with a preface like that and expect me to not want to read it. That’s like giving Lissa a frog and telling her not to stick it down the back of my tunic.”

“I would never provision your sister with such foul weaponry.”

Chrom pinches the skin between his eyes and blows a sigh through his teeth. “Frederick, I ask you, as your liege and friend— _what_ is it behind your back?”

Frederick unclasps his hands and holds out a letter.

“This can’t be,” Chrom mutters, yet he already knows the truth, and the truth is a reed-paper envelope and dark brown ink, his name signed in interloping strokes. He takes it by the edge and runs his thumbs over the surface, stares bewildered at his own name. “I just wrote to her the other night. Gaius said it’d take him near a month to find her.”

“Who now?”

“No one,” says Chrom. “I’d like to read this alone, if I may?”

“You really shouldn’t, milord. She’s trying to rile you.”

“She’s always trying to rile me. That’s the whole point of a rivalry, Frederick.”

Frederick’s eyebrow raises to a perfect parenthesis. “Rivalry? A rivalry is what you have with Lord Virion, or that uncouth ragamuffin Vaike. This is something else altogether.”

“You’re right. It’s a much crueler thing between the Grandmaster and myself.”

“I mean the opposite,” Frederick says. “When you speak of her, I sense…fondness. Amity. I worry, should this carry on for too long, she’ll cause you to forget your allegiances.”

Anger, acid and searing, lances through Chrom. “My allegiances? You mean to my country? My people? Heavens, Frederick, my _allegiances_ are the very thing that will drive my sword through her neck.”

“Is that so? Or will you throw down your sword and offer your arm, instead?”

“I will do no such thing,” Chrom says, his growing temper drawing a hard crease above his eyes. “Believe me, the Mage Grandmaster of Plegia will pay for her crimes.”

“Then it should not alarm you if another sees to the job.”

Chrom seethes, clouding his silverware with the print of his fists. “And is that something you plan to arrange?”

“I speak only in hypotheticals, milord. Nonetheless, you should be prepared in case your little ‘rival’ suddenly stops writing.”

“You’re dismissed, Frederick,” Chrom says, his voice cold.

Frederick’s face twitches, his body indulging a flicker of hesitation before he bows, duty-bound as ever, and moves for the door.

The moment Frederick turns his back, Chrom sets down his utensils and frees the letter from its half-opened shell.

_Dear Chrom,_

_I take it you’ve discovered your ghost is nothing more than another boy with a blade. It must’ve crushed you, realizing what a fool you’d been, but I’m sure you’ll find stronger, more humiliating ways to make a fool of yourself before the day is out._

_Say, are your hands trembling? The speed of my response must surprise you. The truth is, I have always known where you are, where the currents of battle draw your sword to cut—if war is the tide, then I am the moon that yokes it. Our fateful encounter was always to happen on my own accord. Whether that is now, or later, I will not say. Know only that I am close, mere breaths from you, and the upper hand is already mine._

_Nevertheless, be sure to temper yourself in the tournament. Better I’m the one to wound you than your own careless ardor._

_Yours,_

_Robin_

_P.S. I would not worry myself with ghosts, Prince of Ylisse. Not when there are far worse things to fear._

With each word, a rattle hastens in Chrom’s chest, the war-drum pressure building until he feels it in his fingers, his toes, as if the very floor beneath him may splinter from the force of his shock.

She’s here. Robin is _here._

He does not tremble the way she wants him to. Instead, he solidifies, resolute to the marrow. He will win the tournament tonight. Then, he will find Robin wherever she hides, and prove to Frederick that no wicked Mage Grandmaster will ever sway the aim of his sword.

+

Robin is no stranger to dangerous choices. Every maneuver could leave her men broken and blood-let, every march diverted into an ambush. She has spent the better part of her life devising the fates of others, and should thus have no trouble leaving her own feet to dangle above the fire for a change.

Given all this, she doesn’t understand why she regrets leaving Chrom the letter.

Like everything else, it was a tactical decision. A naïve, hopeful part of her, one not yet crushed by her father’s trials or Gangrel’s jagged crown, believed her words might be enough to throw Chrom off-kilter, giving Marth the tournament and depriving Ylisse of Feroxi aid. Still, dread gnaws at her, nipping like some spined, hungry creature burrowed in her gut. Chrom seemed foolishly eager to charm her last night, but what if he makes the connection, realizes that Robin and Daraen are one in the same?

She doesn’t have the time to worry. She has a path to chart and a jewel to find, and her worries of a high-tempered Prince can wait.

Minutes before the gong sounds the duel of the Khans’ champions, Robin meets Gaius beneath the arena stands. He wears a borrowed Plegian guard uniform and a fur-lined cape, his daggers hidden beneath the fabric like retracted teeth. Robin is similarly dressed, her ensemble of black silk and peacock feathers little more than a vein of shine under her cloak. She carries an _Elwind_ tome close to her breast; her blood thuds in her veins, magic-starved and hot with adrenaline.

“Are you sure you want to do this now?” Gaius whispers. He falls into step with her as the crowd roars above them, heralding the arrival of the first champion. “You’re going to miss Blue in the tournament.”

“We’ll need the distraction.” Robin guides him around a corner, and the shadows deepen, smudging out of the seams in the walls. “There’s a dungeon here below the arena. I think I’ve found the way in, but I don’t know if it goes all the way down. I need you to cover for me in case anyone follows us.”

“Hold it, Bubbles. I’m not sure I like the sound of this. What’s down there that’s so important to you?”

“Something that belongs to my father,” she responds. “And wyverns. A bloodthirsty trio of them, I hear.”

Gaius gulps. “You’re not going to use me as bait, right?”

“That depends. Are you volunteering?”

“No, no. You lead the way.”

The passage twines a crooked spiral into the arena’s lower levels, drilling deeper with every long-arcing bend, until a sudden jag and a flight of stairs spits them into another world.

Here, the stone corridor gives way to a rust-lesioned footbridge, the floor little more than a thin iron grate. Steam rises through, smelling of sweat and healers’ herbs and the tarnished-copper scent of fresh blood. People mill about beneath the bridge—Feroxi gladiators, the opening act, and the swath of white-robed clerics tending to their wounds. Robin’s footsteps clank on the metal, but they go unnoticed above the post-battle chatter.

“You know, Bubbles,” Gaius whispers, his own steps featherlight behind her. “If you’re in here trying to steal something, maybe it’s best to send in the professional thief.”

“That’s just the problem: I can’t let you know what I’m stealing,” she says.

“Is it valuable?”

She thinks of Sable in her father’s hand, the way it teemed with otherworldly light. “More than you could ever understand.”

Gaius doesn’t press her further. They move quickly over the bridge, and the shadows return, the walls around them bare and torchless. Robin peels the first few phrases from her tome, bringing a gale of green light to her fingertips. It guides them down, down through a dizzy twist of narrowing halls and dead ends, and Robin begins to wonder if this is all just another one of her father’s ruses, a test she’s destined to fail.

Then, there is the door, foreboding and dark-wooded and obvious, emerging like a Risen beast before them.

Robin presses a hand to the door, and the wood gives like flesh, swelling around the weight of her fingers. _Strange._ She rakes her hand down another panel, watches its print stretch and deepen before rising to smoothness. It’s an enchantment—one she’s not sure how to break.

She steps back and looks for the lock. Its shape echoes a drop of silver rain, melting upwards to a spindle-sharp point. A needle, made for piercing skin instead of fabric. She’s read about these in her histories, ancient chambers that require a blood offering to enter. _Palm of the left, red of the right, speak now your purpose and give forth the tithe._

So long as the wound is shallow, she figures it’s worth a try.

Robin peels off her right glove, crooking her arm to hide her Brand from Gaius. “I think this is where we part,” she says to him. “You should head back up towards the fighters’ den. If anyone spotted us, they’ll be coming from there.”

“Or…I could stand right here, in case you get hurt.”

“I can fend for myself, Gaius,” she snaps.

“Hey. I’m saying this because I’m your friend,” he says, and when she wrinkles her face at him, adds, “whether I’m ‘allowed’ to be or not.”

“Fine. I’m just going to scope it out, and I’ll be right back.”

Gaius mumbles something after, but Robin can’t make sense of it. With his back turned to guard her, she cups the bottom of the lock with her left palm, states her aim (“To learn,” she says, “always to learn”), and pricks her finger, just deeply enough for a tiny pearl of blood to bead and stick.

Light splinters the door in threads like golden fire; with a rain of sparks, it rises up into the wall, giving way to another maddening coil of stairs. She feels promise beyond them. Life, pacing lithe circles in the shadows.

Robin licks the last of the blood from her finger and pulls her glove back on. “Hey Gaius?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t let this door close on me.”

“You got it, Bubbles.” 

She descends, and the darkness welcomes her.

+

By sunset, the pain behind Chrom’s eye has dulled to a subtle ache, like the press of knuckles on an old bruise. It will not worry him as he fights, and for now, breaths before the start of the battle, that is enough.

Arena Ferox is packed to the brim, the crowd surging and frothing like a nighttime sea. Already, there are cries of his name from his sisters, his Shepherds, complete strangers who worry more for Khan Flavia than for him. He lets their voices bolster him; confidence swells warm and airy in his chest.

A prelude of drumming begins, and he marches to the center of the arena, stopping on the outmost curve of an ornate mosaic. His stance fits perfectly between two bejeweled flowers—desert amsonia, the bloom of persistence.

Marth has appeared across from him. Chrom watches closely as he sets his legs shoulder-width apart, a near mirror of Chrom’s own position, and draws his sword. The unsheathed blade is white metal shoring a resplendent gold center; it bears no proper crossguard, only a pear-shaped swell of steel, its weight cut by a teardrop gap in the middle.

“What is this?” he hears someone call from Flavia’s side of the stands. “Two Falchions?”

No. That’s impossible. There is only one Divine Falchion, the sword of the first Exalt, and it is locked between Chrom’s leather-clad palms.

This Marth boy, whoever he truly is, fights as an impostor.

Chrom tenses his fingers around Falchion’s grip. He cannot let anger steer him—not when there is so much more than his pride on the line.

The drumming stops. Chrom and Marth set themselves in perfect parallel, on mark to strike. A mallet hits the wide center bevel of a gong, and as cheers go up around the arena, tamping out the sound, the two champions charge on each other.

Twin blades crack together with an ear-splitting _shing._ For a moment, they stay locked together, a test of their strength, and Chrom takes a beat to study his opponent, as if the glint of their swords could shine a light beneath the mask.

He gleans nothing. Marth shifts his stance, which turns into another hit that Chrom is quick to counter.

So goes on. Marth fights quiet, but his breaths are hard and measured. Chrom recognizes the tempo—he breathes between his strikes, forcing blows on the exhale. It’s a good strategy. Keeps him balanced, maintains his stamina. Chrom uses it himself, and it becomes clear after a belabored minute of parrying that their breaths are matched in rhythm.

Chrom needs to throw him. It’s easy to do with enemy soldiers, but Marth was trained in Ylisse, likely under one of Chrom’s own men. Chrom tries a jab from beneath, but Marth blocks it. An overhead strike, he blocks it. They turn together, arms wrenched through the clash of their blades, and when Chrom swings on the recovery, Marth is there with another block.

“Dammit!” Chrom grumbles, and he swears he sees a flash of a smirk from Marth.

They enter what feels like another ceaseless parry, chasing each other to each edge of the mosaic and back. Chrom may as well be fighting his own shadow, for the way Marth anticipates his moves, always ready when Chrom thinks his guard has slipped.

“Who are you?” Chrom asks as their blades lock again, and it costs him everything.

Marth coils and snaps like a viper. Energy moves from his thighs to his wrists, the full weight of him honed into the blow. Chrom staggers back, then teeters. Falls. His head hits the stone. Brief stars white his vision, blotting out the dark of the sky.

“Is this it? Has the East Khan’s champion fallen?”

 _No._ Chrom takes a deep, steeling breath. _Not yet._ His vision clears, the world rejoining itself. _Not today._

When he rises, all he sees is the white edge-gleam of another Falchion soaring towards his throat.

+

There are men in the stairwell. Feroxi guards, armed to the teeth and near glistening with steam and sweat. They come for Robin with cries in their throats and axes held high, but she is one step ahead, always. Elwind’s verdant gales curl around them like harnesses, and Robin slams them into the stone walls, cracking their armor and knocking them into the cold black of sleep.

_No treasure unguarded, and the best guarded twice._

With her path cleared save for the slumped shine of bodies, Robin keeps moving, the afterglow of her spell still hugging her fingers. Only this time, she does not need its light. A window splits the wall up ahead, letting slats of purple-blue through its rusted iron bars.

She pauses before the window and rises on her tiptoes, peers between the bars. The dungeon her father spoke of is a high-ceilinged chamber, thick with the odors of fire and sewage. Incandescent vines spiderweb the walls and ceiling, tiny stars hanging on their violet boughs. They’re a mirage enchantment, Robin realizes, sister to the one in Castle Plegia’s atrium. Amid the mire of shining foliage, Robin catches dark scales, sleeping beasts. At the far end of the room, near the lip of another doorway, Gules lies in a bed of vines, gleaming like a pearl in an oyster.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Robin exhales.

Little does she know, her voice is a summon. The mirage vines swirl and convex, sliding off wings and a long, hard-plated back like water. Robin throws herself against the far wall, watching frozen as a wyvern’s firestorm gaze fills the window.

It blinks. Tilts its head. Softens its fury, as if it knows her. As if it trusts her not to do it any harm.

She cannot make that promise, and she cannot squash the guilt that trammels her because of it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, knowing what will come later, when the tournament has ended and the people of Colossea have wandered drunk and happy into the night. When she is no longer a Princess, but the Mage Grandmaster, cruel and pitiless, unafraid to destroy even the most beautiful of things.

She runs, and if Gaius sees the quiver in her lip, he does not tell her.

+

Marth’s hit should’ve killed Chrom. He should be lying there on his knees, bleeding out, felled in shame by some boy with a false copy of his sword. But somehow, he ducks within an inch of the blade’s lethal arc and regains his footing.

It is only when Marth resets his stance does Chrom realize he knows the move. He has used it time and again on the battlefield, depriving Risen of their heads, or threatening brigands with the cold kiss of steel.

Either Chrom anticipated his own tactic, or Marth changed the angle of his blade to spare him.

As they parry again—a familiar dance, now—Chrom’s thoughts rail against his focus. Basilio would revel in a bloody victory. Why would Marth spare him? Is it for the same reason he saved him in the woods? The same reason he’d counterfeit his blessed sword?

No time for questions. Marth is quicker than him, lighter, and Chrom will suffer to miss a beat.

But he doesn’t. Neither of them does. Their moves become indistinguishable from each other, a listless tug-of-war of blue hair and white steel, move for move and counter for counter, until it is uncertain who is the cry, and who is the echo.

One of them will tire. One of them will miss, and it won’t be Chrom. Not again.

_Your sisters need you,_ he tells himself.

Marth summons a new wave of strength, striking hard.

_Your people need you._

Chrom throws him back with equal heft, fury building behind his teeth, sparking like thunder in his every muscle.

_You must bring justice._

Marth grunts, his full mouth pulled back in a grimace.

_You must deliver Robin to her end._

Chrom jukes right, and Marth stutters in pursuit—the slightest of missteps, unnoticeable to any enemy who didn’t know his moves. But Chrom knows them, knows them as well as his own skin and breath, and he capitalizes on Marth’s rare beat of weakness with a swift, two-handed blow to the vulnerable lower half of his blade.

Marth topples, and the crowd goes mute. Chrom prepares for him to leap back up, but he stays idle, a sprawl of sore limbs and a heaving chest, the impostor sword flung a good six feet out of his reach.

Ten seconds pass in aching slowness, and Chrom can’t do anything but stand there, riveted on Marth’s limp body. He’s won, the war is tipped in his favor, and yet his victory feels hollow. Undeserved.

One day, he will repay the kid for saving him. Perhaps Naga is simply buying him time to figure out how.

“And the West Khan’s champion is down for the count!” calls that same familiar voice, who Chrom now realizes is the announcer. “The East Khan will take back the rule of Regna Ferox!”

Cheers and boos ring out in overlap, drowning the breathless silence that had covered Marth’s fall. Chrom crouches to offer him a hand, but the boy is already on his feet and walking away.

“What’s this? A sore loser?” the announcer jeers.

Chrom knows that’s not it. Marth is gracious, and serene, and certainly hiding more than just his eyes. 

He trails him to the edge of the arena, where Basilio and one of his guardsmen—a handsome, if dour-faced man around Chrom’s own age—have come down from the stands. Marth blows past them, too, cutting out the nearest exit and into the blue of the night.

Chrom would keep following him, except Basilio catches his eye and stills him with a hard smack on his unarmored shoulder. “Congratulations, boy! It’s an honor to have my throne taken at the mercy of such a capable swordsman.”

“No hard feelings?” Chrom jokes, if half-heartedly.

“None at all. In fact, I have a gift for you.” He gestures to the guardsmen, who only grunts and briefly raises his eyebrows. Upon closer inspection, Chrom notices the sword at his hip is Balmung. “Lon’qu is the best of my men. He’ll serve you well on your travels home.”

“You’re offering your…soldier? Assassin?”

Lon’qu crosses his arms. “You give orders, I stab people. I think my role is pretty clear.”

“Then is Marth staying with you?” Chrom asks.

“Hah! To tell you the truth, I don’t know a thing about that boy, except that he’s good with a sword. Ask Lon’qu, here. Marth knocked him right on his…”

“Enough,” Lon’qu says, bristling. “What matters is it’s done.”

“Do you know where he’s staying?” Chrom asks Basilio. “I’d like to meet him again before I leave tomorrow.”

Basilio gets no time to answer. A shrill cry of, “CHROM! THERE YOU ARE!” rings through the air, and Chrom turns just in time to snag his beaming little sister in his arms.

+

A snake sheds its skin for the simple reason that it has outgrown it. An ill-fitting skin is tight and dry and burdensome; it chokes, restricts, making movement slow and painful. In the wrong skin, a snake cannot hunt its prey, nor wriggle away from its predators.

In the wrong skin, a snake is as good as dead.

Before the mirror, Robin shucks the Princess guise with ritual grace. Her finery makes a pool like tar at her feet, her crown cast carelessly onto the bed. Damp puffs collect the last oily traces of her makeup—though she’s kept a thin layer of the black around her eyes. She fixes her hair, first, making a pair of tiny braids before weaving them into her pigtails, then slips into her favorite blouse and pants. Fastens her belt. Steps into her boots. Slips each arm into her tactician’s mantle, savoring its soft, familiar warmth.

Tomorrow, she will pull the husk of Daraen over her body once more. But tonight, she is Robin again, and the Levin sword at her hip has never felt more right.

+

Battle-worn and exhausted, Chrom skips the closing festivities in favor of lying boneless in the armchair by his window, watching the city glimmer on without him. After a while, he gets up to dress for bed, but the window distracts him again. The clouds have parted for the night, giving way to an almost-full moon, so bright and near that even its tea-stain craters are visible. Chrom might stare at it awhile longer, marvel the halo it makes from the ice in the sky, but a dark flicker of movement calls his gaze down to the walkway below his window.

Chrom’s pulse flickers. It’s _Marth._

On impulse, Chrom gathers his sword and unlatches the window. He calls Marth’s name, but the boy either ignores him, or doesn’t hear him at all. Chrom could run downstairs to catch him, but by then, he knows he’ll be gone, lost again to the night.

He crawls out the window with all the prowess of a child well-versed in sneaking out, the dead ivy on the walls shuffling and sighing beneath his weight.

He hits the snow with a wet thud and breaks into a sprint. “Marth! Wait up!”

Marth refuses to answer. Chrom picks up his pace, leaving deeper prints in the snow.

“Hey! I just wanted to thank you!”

To Chrom’s surprise, Marth stops and turns. He is silent, but his pause gives Chrom the time to catch up.

“You saved me,” Chrom says, breathless. “That day in the woods. You saved me, knowing I was your competition. Why?”

“Because your destiny is to live.”

Chrom flinches like he’s been struck. “I…what?”

“You must live, Chrom, if any of us are to do the same,” he says, and then he pivots again, running with his cape flared blue and red behind him.

“Wait! What about your sword? Why would you choose a replica of Falchion?”

No answer. Marth keeps running, luring him back down the now-deserted road towards the Arena.

“At least tell me where you’re going in the dead of night,” Chrom calls out. “Basilio will be worried about you.”

“I’m going to see my mother,” Marth replies, tossing the words like a coin over his shoulder.

_A Feroxi mother?_

Chrom regrets not voicing his question. He blinks the cold from his eyes, and Marth is gone.

He won’t let him get away so fast. Not when he may never see him again. He keeps jogging towards the Arena, even as the bitter air stings his lungs and fatigue heavies his body. The Arena rises as a monstrous shadow, its torches doused and capped to signal the ruling Khan’s loss. But tomorrow, they will blaze again, and the flags of Eastern Ferox will wave from the turrets. Tomorrow, they will make haste for Ylisse with bolstered hopes.

But not before Chrom gets his answers.

He slows to a walk, then pauses altogether. Someone is here with him, but it isn’t Marth. The figure slinking towards an unguarded entry is too small to be him, too foxlike and coy in their movements. Chrom pads closer, and the details appear in moon-bitten shards: a hooded cloak, cuts of pale hair, a sword in the shape of a thunderbolt.

_Robin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so many mysteries, so little time...just kidding I'm here forever bahahaha
> 
> please leave a kudo and a comment if you liked the chapter!!! I am personally freaked out about robin pricking her finger, btw, but unlike dean winchester I can assure you she will not be dying of tetanus

**Author's Note:**

> yes. robin is on the verge of regicide while chrom's out here living pride and prejudice: ylisse edition. it's called "I do what I want."
> 
> anyway, hope you guys like it so far!!! I've written a ton of these letters because their written characterization is SO FUN TO DO so the next chapter should be coming very soon! hope you're as excited to watch these sworn nemeses fall in love as I am to write it happening.


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